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The purpose of this statement by Jesus has often been mistranslated by ecclesiastical so-called Christian teachers who want to emphasize what materialistic things God can do for us. Those that put a focus on all the "stuff" God will give us, including wealth, health, family and so on, is simply attempting to put God into the position of being our servant. Rather, Jesus' mission was to teach us that we are all God's servants. Our purpose is to love and serve God, not to be waited on by God.
We must understand what Jesus means by “faith.”
"Faith," as Jesus puts it himself elsewhere, is not merely making a claim before others. Proclaiming to others that “Jesus lives” or “Jesus loves” or “Jesus saves” is not the same as faith. Anyone can have faith in that a historical person existed. Anyone can claim that Jesus performed miracles. Again, this is not the meaning of “faith.”
Many others will say that having faith means believing that God exists. However, this is not so hard either, because it makes scientific logic that God exists. Scientists like to say that it is more scientific that the universe, and all of its manifestations, including people who love and care for each other, and all the different species of life, all just came about as a big accident. It all just formed out of chaos. They also claim that life spontaneously generated from a bunch of chemicals, and that somehow, dead chemicals suddenly realized they were alive and began to mutate. They also propose that the whole universe came from nothing (or something? this is the "singularity problem")
Now believing this requires faith. But faith in what? No, you cannot have faith in a theory. You have to have faith in someone. As for this views of the modern scientists, we are having faith in those scientists - that they are somehow more knowledgeable than we are.
This is called trust.
The meaning of “faith” is to trust that Jesus, Moses, Abraham, David, Solomon and all the other prophets were telling us the truth about God and heaven. Faith means that we trust that they were passing along to us the messages that God told them to give us. We are trusting that they loved God, and that God loved them. We are trusting, above all, that God loves us and cares for us.
This is called trust, and faith is trust.
Faith, then, is trusting that God will take care of us. We don't need to ask God to give us this and give us that. We can merely trust that in God we are safe. As long as we are thinking of God and caring for God, we don't have to worry about ourselves, because God is also thinking of us and caring for us.
What many people are doing in the name of faith is really testing God. We are saying, "well if God doesn't give me this or give me that then He doesn't exist." This has nothing to do with faith. Rather, this is a lack of faith. A person who trusts God will not need to test God.
Yet this testing process is exactly what many of the evangelists are doing in the name of Jesus. They are standing on their pulpits making their millions of dollars, and are supposedly helping all these people get what they want in front of the TV cameras so that everyone can have faith that Jesus exists. Some of them are even faking the process by paying people to act as if they were healed. Furthermore, they promise people that if they send in their donations, the preacher will pray for them and all their desires will be satisfied. Now this is not faith. This is simply abusing innocent people in the name of Jesus.
This is the reason that Jesus said:
“Many will come to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles? Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'” (Matt. 7:22)
Not only does Jesus not accept these people, he called them "evildoers"! Why? Consider this statement, made right before the above statement:
“Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” (Matt. 7:21)
So it is one who does God's will that Jesus will accept. Not that we are constantly asking God to do our will!
And what does it mean to do God's will? Doing God's will means having faith in God.
Consider what happens if our mother tells us to do something, and we don't know why. What do we do? Do we demand to know why before we will do it? No. We simply will do it, trusting that what our mother is asking us to do is good for us and others. In other words, we are having faith in our mother by doing what she asks.
It is no different when we do God's will. It requires us to trust God.
Faith means having complete confidence that doing God's will is best. It is also trusting that God will take care of me. God will take care of me, and all I have to do is learn to please God, and my life is fulfilled. All I have to do is focus my thoughts and life upon Him, and my life is complete.
Today most of us run around in complete anxiety. We worry about our job. We worry about our boss. We worry about whether we have enough money. We worry about whether we’ll have enough to send our kids to college. We worry about what the neighbors think. We worry about missing the chip shot at the golf course. We worry about getting old. We worry about dying.
Why all this worry? The extent of our worry reflects the extent of our lack of faith in God. If we do not trust that God will take care of us, then we have to worry about taking care of ourselves. This is a lack of faith.
When Jesus says here that with faith we can do everything, what is he actually saying? He is saying that God can do everything. He is saying that if we have faith that God can do everything, then our lives will change. If we have faith in God, we can do His will, rest in Him, and know He is in complete control. Nothing is out of His hands.
It is not as if we somehow want to grab onto faith, and then start trying to dominate the world by moving mountains around! In fact, having faith would automatically delete our thinking that we would need to move any mountains. We would simply have faith that if God thought the mountains needed to move, then they would be moved. On the other hand, if we were trying to serve God, and the mountains needed to move in order to complete our service to God, we would have confidence that God would see that they were moved. Otherwise, there would be no need to move any mountains.
On the more practical side, however, on a daily basis, as we are trying to learn God’s lessons, and trying to please God by somehow serving Him in some small way, then we can have faith that our activities, if they are pleasing to Him, will have the impact that He wants them to have. We don’t have to worry that our activities are not having any effect. We have faith that if we simply try to please Him, then whatever He wills will be done. He is, after all, God.
This is trusting in God. And completely trusting God means having faith.
“O unbelieving and perverse generation. How long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me.” (Matt. 17:17)
This is Jesus’ response when a man approached him saying, “Lord, have mercy on my son. He is an epileptic and is suffering greatly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. I brought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him.” (Matt. 17:15-16)
Here Jesus is commenting not upon the process of healing, but the level of trust that those around him had in God.
Belief in God is not so difficult. It makes logical sense that there is a Creator. After all, how did life arise accidentally? How did love arise accidentally? Scientists have many theories, but they all seem to go haywire once they reach the singularity problem. In other words, they cannot explain what existed before the big bang or string proliferation or whatever new concoction they have come up with that supposedly gave birth to the universe.
They also cannot explain how dead matter in the form of chemicals suddenly became alive. What made the dead chemicals suddenly desire survival and begin to love each other?
Anyway, the belief that a Living Creator created other living beings is not so hard to envision. It is certainly more scientific to believe that all the living complexities, including love, compassion, mercy, chivalry and personality, all arose from an Original Personality. God is not so hard to believe in, in other words.
What is hard is coming to trust God. This is the meaning of faith. Trusting God means relying upon Him. Trusting God means knowing that whatever happens, it is for our best. It means that we know that He loves us and always wants the best for us, regardless of the temporary condition of our physical body.
Jesus' healings were instructional. They were not simply intended to prove to the people that he had power. They were to show people that they could rely upon God.
How so? Because Jesus was relying upon God, as he stated many times. The power to heal did not come from Jesus. It came from God, and Jesus was God's messenger. This is why Jesus said:
"When a man believes in me, he does not believe in me only, but in the One who sent me." (John 12:44)
So as the people around him were scurrying around wanting to be healed, Jesus became upset from time to time because they were not getting it. They were not understanding that Jesus was trying to show these people that they could rely upon God. Whether their bodies were healed or not, God will take of their real body: their spiritual body.
Why else would Jesus have used the word "perverse generation"? Perverse means something is perverted, or turned into something selfish. How were the people perverted? Because Jesus' demonstrations of God's mercy were intended to bring their focus upon God. Instead their focus was perverted upon getting all their various sicknesses healed.
We should all take this lesson to our hearts. Jesus did not come to heal people. He came to deliver God's message that God wants us to trust Him. God wants us to return to Him. This is why Jesus' most important instruction, as was Moses' most important instruction, was:
“ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment.” (Matt. 22:37)
When we love someone, we trust them. When we trust them, we have faith in them.
Here Jesus is commenting not upon the process of healing, but the level of trust that those around him had in God.
Belief in God is not so difficult. It makes logical sense that there is a Creator. After all, how did life arise accidentally? How did love arise accidentally? Scientists have many theories, but they all seem to go haywire once they reach the singularity problem. In other words, they cannot explain what existed before the big bang or string proliferation or whatever new concoction they have come up with that supposedly gave birth to the universe.
They also cannot explain how dead matter in the form of chemicals suddenly became alive. What made the dead chemicals suddenly desire survival and begin to love each other?
Anyway, the belief that a Living Creator created other living beings is not so hard to envision. It is certainly more scientific to believe that all the living complexities, including love, compassion, mercy, chivalry and personality, all arose from an Original Personality. God is not so hard to believe in, in other words.
What is hard is coming to trust God. This is the meaning of faith. Trusting God means relying upon Him. Trusting God means knowing that whatever happens, it is for our best. It means that we know that He loves us and always wants the best for us, regardless of the temporary condition of our physical body.
Jesus' healings were instructional. They were not simply intended to prove to the people that he had power. They were to show people that they could rely upon God.
How so? Because Jesus was relying upon God, as he stated many times. The power to heal did not come from Jesus. It came from God, and Jesus was God's messenger. This is why Jesus said:
"When a man believes in me, he does not believe in me only, but in the One who sent me." (John 12:44)
So as the people around him were scurrying around wanting to be healed, Jesus became upset from time to time because they were not getting it. They were not understanding that Jesus was trying to show these people that they could rely upon God. Whether their bodies were healed or not, God will take of their real body: their spiritual body.
Why else would Jesus have used the word "perverse generation"? Perverse means something is perverted, or turned into something selfish. How were the people perverted? Because Jesus' demonstrations of God's mercy were intended to bring their focus upon God. Instead their focus was perverted upon getting all their various sicknesses healed.
We should all take this lesson to our hearts. Jesus did not come to heal people. He came to deliver God's message that God wants us to trust Him. God wants us to return to Him. This is why Jesus' most important instruction, as was Moses' most important instruction, was:
“ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment.” (Matt. 22:37)
When we love someone, we trust them. When we trust them, we have faith in them.
“To be sure, Elijah comes and will restore all things. But I tell you, Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but have done to him everything they wished. In the same way the son of man [servant of humanity] is going to suffer at their hands.” (Matt. 17:11-12)
This is Jesus’ answer to a question asked by his disciples: “Why then do the teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first?” (Matt. 17:10)
Now after Jesus’ statement above, Matthew states, “Then the disciples understood that he was talking about John the Baptist.” (Matt. 17:13).
The perception that has been interpreted from this by many ecclesiastical teachers and organizations, however, is wholly different from the reality of these statements and the source of the statements.
The source of this conversation comes from when God said to Israel through His loving servant, Malachi:
"See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes.” (Malachi 4:5)
Ecclesiastical Jewish pharisees and ecclesiastical Christians through today have interpreted that Malachi was foretelling a sign in the future (Elijah) before the “messiah” will come. They interpreted "that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes" as the day the "messiah" comes down to the earth and everyone will at the same time be judged for their sins and their faith in God. They also claim that all sorts of physical transformations would take place at the same time. While this may be based upon the same words of scripture, the interpretation is incorrect. Let's clarify this statement:
Here is the complete statement of Malachi on this topic:
“You have said, ‘It is futile serve God. What did we gain by carrying out His requirements and going about like mourners before the Lord Almighty? But now we call the arrogant blessed. Certainly the evildoers prosper, and even those who challenge God escape.’”
Then those who feared the Lord talked with each other, and the Lord listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in His presence concerning those who feared the Lord and honored His Name.
“They will be mine,” says the Lord Almighty, “in the day when I make up my treasured possession, I will spare them, just as in compassion a man spares his son who serves him. And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not.
“Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and that day is coming will set them on fire,’ says the Lord Almighty. “Not a root or a branch will be left to them. But for you who revere My Name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall. Then you will trample down the wicked; they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I do these things,’ says the Lord Almighty.
Remember the law of My servant Moses, the decrees and laws I gave him at Horeb for all Israel.
“See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse.” (Mal 3:14-5:6)
First let’s consider the name “Elijah.” The prophet Elijah of the Old Testament (Kings - before Malachi) was a devoted servant of God. However, his name arose from a translation of: “He who comes in the Name of God,” or “He who reveres the Name of God,” or “Yahweh is my God.” So while there was a prophet named Elijah, the name Elijah does not necessarily refer to a particular historical person. It refers to anyone who completely dedicates themselves to God, reveres God's Name, and is a representative of God. It is a title rather than a historical person.
Notice that God God says that Elijah will come before the “day.” God will be sending, prior to this “day,” one of His loving servants (as we know that God has many loving servants, not just one), who will represent Him to those God is speaking to. Before this “day,” in other words, God will send someone who teaches the Truth.
So what is this “day” anyway? If we were to assume the interpretations that many Christians make of Malachi and Jesus’ statement here, then the “day” where all the evildoers would be trampled to ashes would have had to be when Jesus came, since that “day” would follow “Elijah,” which was understood (from Matthew) to have been John the Baptist.
So when did the "great and dreadful day" occur during Jesus' life? When did the wicked get trampled, and the fires burn them to ashes? Did it occur during Jesus' life? How about when he was crucified? How come the wicked seemed to do just fine after the crucifixion? The Romans went on to control the region and eventually control the whole of Christianity (including many of the scribes who (mis)translated the ancient Hebrew texts). They certainly did not get trampled.
So we must now ask, why did this “day” not come yet? Why has the world not been destroyed, and everyone trampled? Hasn't Elijah in the form of John the Baptist come?
According to the ecclesiastical Jewish teachers, the “messiah” (and the "day") has not come yet. They are still awaiting the messiah, and maintain the Jesus was not the messiah.
The ecclesiastical Christians, on the other hand, maintain that while the messiah came, he didn't really come in the way foretold in Malachi. In other words, Jesus is supposed to come again: A second coming, in other words. It is this "second coming" that will bring upon the earth the trampling and burning of the wicked, according to them.
So now the ecclesiastical Christians are waiting for the second coming, and many are warning that it is just around the corner. Here are some of the many predictions of the date of the "judgement day"/"second coming" over the centuries, made by various ecclesiastical churches and their teachers:
Hilary of Poiniers: 365 AD (the date predicted)
Saint Martin of Tours: 375 to 400 AD
Sextus Julius Africanus: 500 AD
Gerard of Poehlde: 1147 AD
John of Toledo: 1179 AD
Joachim of Fiore: 1205 AD
Pope Innocent III: 1284 AD
Melchior Hoffman: 1533 AD
Benjamin Keach (Baptist): 1689 AD
William Whitson: 1736 AD
The Shakers (Ann Lee): 1792 AD
Charles Wesley (Methodist): 1794 AD
Margaret McDonald: 1830 AD
Joseph Smith (Mormon): 1832 and 1891 AD
William Miller (Millerites): 1843 and 1844 AD
Ellen White (Seven Day Adventists): 1850, 1856 and "early 1900s" AD
Mother Shipton: 1881 AD
Watchtower Bible and Tract Society (Jehovah's Witnesses): 1914, 1915, 1918, 1920, 1925, 1941, 1975, 1994 and others more recent.
Many of these sects mentioned above were founded upon or gained popularity through the prediction of a certain day by its founder or teachers. Several modern ecclesiastical preachers have also continued this tradition, and there have been many recent predictions of dates that have passed or are within the next year or two.
So what are we to say about the rest of their teachings and interpretations of scripture? Were they only wrong about the date and right about everything else?
Perhaps they were wrong about their interpretation of this day.
In reality, this “day of reckoning” passes each and every day for certain individuals.
Quite simply, it is the day each of us (rather our physical body) dies.
Each of us is wearing a physical body that will one day, die. This “day” will be the point of reckoning for each of us. We will have to reckon with the decisions and actions we made throughout our physical lives.
For those who lived their lives trying to grow in their love and faith for God, this “day” will be a day where, as God said through Malachi: “But for you who revere my Name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall.”
For those who have lived their lives solely for selfish purposes - trying to achieve happiness at the expense of others - they will be greeted on this “day of reckoning" with another fate: “All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and that day is coming will set them on fire.”
Let’s think about this clearly: For each of us, this day is coming: It would simply not make sense to say that this day is coming at a time in the future after we were all dead. That would mean that we (and billions upon billions of others) would have to wait around in some kind of fictitious waiting room ("purgatory?") for this day, which occurs thousands of years after some of these people have died. Does this make any sense? Is God limited to having just one day of reckoning?
The day of reckoning is also spoken of as a day of judgement: "Judgement day". Yes, each of us will be judged for our lifetimes at the time of death. This is our judgement day. God also says through Malachi that the day will be preceded by Elijah. Yes, God sends His loving servants to the earth to pass on His message constantly. There is always a loving servant of God upon the earth at any particular time. If we desire to hear the truth about God and desire to return to Him, we are shown this person. For those who do not wish to return to God, they will not be paying any attention because they are too focused upon their own pleasures. For those who do not utilize this human form of life to search out God and develop spiritually face a "day of reckoning" that is not pleasing. At the time of death, when those beings leave their dying bodies, they will be faced with the consequences of their actions.
As for those who decide they want to return to God during this lifetime, they will be introduced to an Elijah, who will guide them during their lifetimes, and they re-develop their relationship of loving service with God. For them, the time of death ("day") is a wonderful experience. On this day they God and some of His servants will come to embrace His loving servant and bring him back to the spiritual world. Consider again carefully these statements from Malachi:
A scroll of remembrance was written in His presence concerning those who feared the Lord and honored His Name. “They will be mine,” says the Lord Almighty, “in the day when I make up my treasured possession, I will spare them, just as in compassion a man spares his son who serves him. And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not.
And the physical transformations of this day? When the spiritual being leaves the dying physical body, it is transformed. Where does it go from there? This is determined by the decisions we make now.
For Jesus and his disciples, they all accepted John the Baptist as that great Teacher of the Truth who came with in the Name of God, to teach them the truth. Jesus in fact was a student of John the Baptist, so Jesus accepted John as his teacher. It is obvious that Jesus was a devoted student of John the Baptist. Here he condemns those who mistreated John the Baptist. This is the mark of a devoted student. Jesus was, as he wanted each of his disciples to be, a devoted student of a student of a student of a student….. of God. This is called a “disciplic succession.” Jesus was part of it, and he practiced what he preached.
Certainly Jesus' humility regarding the position of Elijah ("one who comes in the Name of the Lord") is illustrated here. Jesus condemns those who heard the teachings of John the Baptist and disregarded those teachings: "Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him."
Jesus certainly did not disregard John's teachings. Like a faithful student and loving servant of God, he passed those teachings on, and asked his students to pass them on further.
Jesus' last statement illustrates that just as John the Baptist had to suffer for his teachings and service to God, Jesus too would suffer for those same teachings and service. They suffered so that we might listen and learn the Truth.
Who, then, is the "messiah?" The true messiah (Savior) is God Himself, and anyone who becomes His authorized representative and passes on the teachings of God is, in fact, a messiah.
Now after Jesus’ statement above, Matthew states, “Then the disciples understood that he was talking about John the Baptist.” (Matt. 17:13).
The perception that has been interpreted from this by many ecclesiastical teachers and organizations, however, is wholly different from the reality of these statements and the source of the statements.
The source of this conversation comes from when God said to Israel through His loving servant, Malachi:
"See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes.” (Malachi 4:5)
Ecclesiastical Jewish pharisees and ecclesiastical Christians through today have interpreted that Malachi was foretelling a sign in the future (Elijah) before the “messiah” will come. They interpreted "that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes" as the day the "messiah" comes down to the earth and everyone will at the same time be judged for their sins and their faith in God. They also claim that all sorts of physical transformations would take place at the same time. While this may be based upon the same words of scripture, the interpretation is incorrect. Let's clarify this statement:
Here is the complete statement of Malachi on this topic:
“You have said, ‘It is futile serve God. What did we gain by carrying out His requirements and going about like mourners before the Lord Almighty? But now we call the arrogant blessed. Certainly the evildoers prosper, and even those who challenge God escape.’”
Then those who feared the Lord talked with each other, and the Lord listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in His presence concerning those who feared the Lord and honored His Name.
“They will be mine,” says the Lord Almighty, “in the day when I make up my treasured possession, I will spare them, just as in compassion a man spares his son who serves him. And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not.
“Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and that day is coming will set them on fire,’ says the Lord Almighty. “Not a root or a branch will be left to them. But for you who revere My Name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall. Then you will trample down the wicked; they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I do these things,’ says the Lord Almighty.
Remember the law of My servant Moses, the decrees and laws I gave him at Horeb for all Israel.
“See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse.” (Mal 3:14-5:6)
First let’s consider the name “Elijah.” The prophet Elijah of the Old Testament (Kings - before Malachi) was a devoted servant of God. However, his name arose from a translation of: “He who comes in the Name of God,” or “He who reveres the Name of God,” or “Yahweh is my God.” So while there was a prophet named Elijah, the name Elijah does not necessarily refer to a particular historical person. It refers to anyone who completely dedicates themselves to God, reveres God's Name, and is a representative of God. It is a title rather than a historical person.
Notice that God God says that Elijah will come before the “day.” God will be sending, prior to this “day,” one of His loving servants (as we know that God has many loving servants, not just one), who will represent Him to those God is speaking to. Before this “day,” in other words, God will send someone who teaches the Truth.
So what is this “day” anyway? If we were to assume the interpretations that many Christians make of Malachi and Jesus’ statement here, then the “day” where all the evildoers would be trampled to ashes would have had to be when Jesus came, since that “day” would follow “Elijah,” which was understood (from Matthew) to have been John the Baptist.
So when did the "great and dreadful day" occur during Jesus' life? When did the wicked get trampled, and the fires burn them to ashes? Did it occur during Jesus' life? How about when he was crucified? How come the wicked seemed to do just fine after the crucifixion? The Romans went on to control the region and eventually control the whole of Christianity (including many of the scribes who (mis)translated the ancient Hebrew texts). They certainly did not get trampled.
So we must now ask, why did this “day” not come yet? Why has the world not been destroyed, and everyone trampled? Hasn't Elijah in the form of John the Baptist come?
According to the ecclesiastical Jewish teachers, the “messiah” (and the "day") has not come yet. They are still awaiting the messiah, and maintain the Jesus was not the messiah.
The ecclesiastical Christians, on the other hand, maintain that while the messiah came, he didn't really come in the way foretold in Malachi. In other words, Jesus is supposed to come again: A second coming, in other words. It is this "second coming" that will bring upon the earth the trampling and burning of the wicked, according to them.
So now the ecclesiastical Christians are waiting for the second coming, and many are warning that it is just around the corner. Here are some of the many predictions of the date of the "judgement day"/"second coming" over the centuries, made by various ecclesiastical churches and their teachers:
Hilary of Poiniers: 365 AD (the date predicted)
Saint Martin of Tours: 375 to 400 AD
Sextus Julius Africanus: 500 AD
Gerard of Poehlde: 1147 AD
John of Toledo: 1179 AD
Joachim of Fiore: 1205 AD
Pope Innocent III: 1284 AD
Melchior Hoffman: 1533 AD
Benjamin Keach (Baptist): 1689 AD
William Whitson: 1736 AD
The Shakers (Ann Lee): 1792 AD
Charles Wesley (Methodist): 1794 AD
Margaret McDonald: 1830 AD
Joseph Smith (Mormon): 1832 and 1891 AD
William Miller (Millerites): 1843 and 1844 AD
Ellen White (Seven Day Adventists): 1850, 1856 and "early 1900s" AD
Mother Shipton: 1881 AD
Watchtower Bible and Tract Society (Jehovah's Witnesses): 1914, 1915, 1918, 1920, 1925, 1941, 1975, 1994 and others more recent.
Many of these sects mentioned above were founded upon or gained popularity through the prediction of a certain day by its founder or teachers. Several modern ecclesiastical preachers have also continued this tradition, and there have been many recent predictions of dates that have passed or are within the next year or two.
So what are we to say about the rest of their teachings and interpretations of scripture? Were they only wrong about the date and right about everything else?
Perhaps they were wrong about their interpretation of this day.
In reality, this “day of reckoning” passes each and every day for certain individuals.
Quite simply, it is the day each of us (rather our physical body) dies.
Each of us is wearing a physical body that will one day, die. This “day” will be the point of reckoning for each of us. We will have to reckon with the decisions and actions we made throughout our physical lives.
For those who lived their lives trying to grow in their love and faith for God, this “day” will be a day where, as God said through Malachi: “But for you who revere my Name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall.”
For those who have lived their lives solely for selfish purposes - trying to achieve happiness at the expense of others - they will be greeted on this “day of reckoning" with another fate: “All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and that day is coming will set them on fire.”
Let’s think about this clearly: For each of us, this day is coming: It would simply not make sense to say that this day is coming at a time in the future after we were all dead. That would mean that we (and billions upon billions of others) would have to wait around in some kind of fictitious waiting room ("purgatory?") for this day, which occurs thousands of years after some of these people have died. Does this make any sense? Is God limited to having just one day of reckoning?
The day of reckoning is also spoken of as a day of judgement: "Judgement day". Yes, each of us will be judged for our lifetimes at the time of death. This is our judgement day. God also says through Malachi that the day will be preceded by Elijah. Yes, God sends His loving servants to the earth to pass on His message constantly. There is always a loving servant of God upon the earth at any particular time. If we desire to hear the truth about God and desire to return to Him, we are shown this person. For those who do not wish to return to God, they will not be paying any attention because they are too focused upon their own pleasures. For those who do not utilize this human form of life to search out God and develop spiritually face a "day of reckoning" that is not pleasing. At the time of death, when those beings leave their dying bodies, they will be faced with the consequences of their actions.
As for those who decide they want to return to God during this lifetime, they will be introduced to an Elijah, who will guide them during their lifetimes, and they re-develop their relationship of loving service with God. For them, the time of death ("day") is a wonderful experience. On this day they God and some of His servants will come to embrace His loving servant and bring him back to the spiritual world. Consider again carefully these statements from Malachi:
A scroll of remembrance was written in His presence concerning those who feared the Lord and honored His Name. “They will be mine,” says the Lord Almighty, “in the day when I make up my treasured possession, I will spare them, just as in compassion a man spares his son who serves him. And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not.
And the physical transformations of this day? When the spiritual being leaves the dying physical body, it is transformed. Where does it go from there? This is determined by the decisions we make now.
For Jesus and his disciples, they all accepted John the Baptist as that great Teacher of the Truth who came with in the Name of God, to teach them the truth. Jesus in fact was a student of John the Baptist, so Jesus accepted John as his teacher. It is obvious that Jesus was a devoted student of John the Baptist. Here he condemns those who mistreated John the Baptist. This is the mark of a devoted student. Jesus was, as he wanted each of his disciples to be, a devoted student of a student of a student of a student….. of God. This is called a “disciplic succession.” Jesus was part of it, and he practiced what he preached.
Certainly Jesus' humility regarding the position of Elijah ("one who comes in the Name of the Lord") is illustrated here. Jesus condemns those who heard the teachings of John the Baptist and disregarded those teachings: "Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him."
Jesus certainly did not disregard John's teachings. Like a faithful student and loving servant of God, he passed those teachings on, and asked his students to pass them on further.
Jesus' last statement illustrates that just as John the Baptist had to suffer for his teachings and service to God, Jesus too would suffer for those same teachings and service. They suffered so that we might listen and learn the Truth.
Who, then, is the "messiah?" The true messiah (Savior) is God Himself, and anyone who becomes His authorized representative and passes on the teachings of God is, in fact, a messiah.
“Don’t tell anyone what you have seen until the son of man [servant of humanity] has been raised from the dead.” (Matt. 17:9)
This was spoken by Jesus as he and Peter, James and John were walking down from the mountain after they had witnessed God’s voice, and Jesus had spoken with Moses and Elijah. It is understood from his statement that Jesus understands there is a larger plan to his life. He understands that while people may not understand what happened on the mountain very easily, the information is best suited for posthumous understanding.
There is a misunderstanding among ecclesiastical Christianity regarding the concept of “raised from the dead.” Most theologians interpret this statement to mean the three-day disappearance of Jesus’ body, and the sudden appearance of his form to his disciples. This is not the reality of his statement. If we assume that ‘rising from the dead’ means that Jesus died and then rose within a physical body that was crucified, this means that we are proclaiming that the physical body does not decompose after its death.
For hundreds of years humans have been digging up various remains to study ancient history. Frequently, we will even dig up a grave to study a person’s cause of death. Sometimes we even discover situations where people were buried in fields a few years ago. In every case, we find that the human body simply decomposes: No differently, in fact, than an animal body does. We also find no difference in the decomposition between a ‘Christian’ and a non-'Christian.' Every body decomposes equally once the spirit leaves the body. This is called death.
So we ask again, what is the logical meaning of Jesus’ phrase “raised from the dead.” Remember also Jesus’ statement in Matthew 8:22:
“Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”
Here a dead body is being compared to persons who are spiritually dead. They are focused upon the things of the temporary physical world. Why are things of the physical world considered dead? Consider what happens when the living spirit leaves the body. The body dies. In other words, the makeup of the physical world is basically dead matter. Without the animation of the body by the spiritual entities within all the bodies (including plants, insects and animals) there would be no life. Physical matter is essentially dead, and those who give singular focus on the matter of the physical world are considered spiritually dead.
So in the above statement, Jesus is telling his disciples to not reveal what happened until after his body dies and he - the spiritual being - returns to the spiritual world ("raised from the dead").
There is a misunderstanding among ecclesiastical Christianity regarding the concept of “raised from the dead.” Most theologians interpret this statement to mean the three-day disappearance of Jesus’ body, and the sudden appearance of his form to his disciples. This is not the reality of his statement. If we assume that ‘rising from the dead’ means that Jesus died and then rose within a physical body that was crucified, this means that we are proclaiming that the physical body does not decompose after its death.
For hundreds of years humans have been digging up various remains to study ancient history. Frequently, we will even dig up a grave to study a person’s cause of death. Sometimes we even discover situations where people were buried in fields a few years ago. In every case, we find that the human body simply decomposes: No differently, in fact, than an animal body does. We also find no difference in the decomposition between a ‘Christian’ and a non-'Christian.' Every body decomposes equally once the spirit leaves the body. This is called death.
So we ask again, what is the logical meaning of Jesus’ phrase “raised from the dead.” Remember also Jesus’ statement in Matthew 8:22:
“Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”
Here a dead body is being compared to persons who are spiritually dead. They are focused upon the things of the temporary physical world. Why are things of the physical world considered dead? Consider what happens when the living spirit leaves the body. The body dies. In other words, the makeup of the physical world is basically dead matter. Without the animation of the body by the spiritual entities within all the bodies (including plants, insects and animals) there would be no life. Physical matter is essentially dead, and those who give singular focus on the matter of the physical world are considered spiritually dead.
So in the above statement, Jesus is telling his disciples to not reveal what happened until after his body dies and he - the spiritual being - returns to the spiritual world ("raised from the dead").
“Get up. Don’t be afraid.” (Matt. 17:6)
After hearing this voice coming from God, Peter, James and John fell to the ground facedown in fear. Jesus then touched them and said the above. He was in effect telling them that they did not have to fear God.
Because God’s appearances in the Bible have been shrouded in power and mystery, and there are many statements about “fearing” God, there has been a tendency among the Christian world to fear God rather than love Him. This is an unfortunate situation. It just so happens that much of the current Bible’s translations as they were put from Aramaic to Greek, were revised within the context of the Council of Nicea. The first council was assembled by Constantine, who wanted to organize and control the Christian world. The first Council of Nicea accepted and rejected certain translations of many scriptural writings, and assembled the Bible into books. They screened out and tossed out certain texts that did not meet their political objectives.
During the Council of Nicea assembly, it was decided that it would better meet their objectives if God the Father were a God the people feared. If the people feared God, then they would come to church under threat that He would punish them with hell if they did not attend church and pay tithings.
For this reason, we find many translations, especially among the books of the Old Testament using the phrase “fear God” rather than its original intention “love God” or “honor God,” or even “respect God.” We know this because of the loving relationship that existed between God and many of the saints of the Bible, such as Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon, Jonah and so many others. We also have to consider Moses' command, which was reiterated by Jesus:
“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment.” (Matt. 22:37-38)
With respect to the Council of Nicea, there were several other critical decisions made by the first council, including the Nicene Creed, which has been inherited by nearly every Christian church and sect over the hundreds of years since its writing. Part of the creed says:
"In one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church."
Notice the intent to form one "authorized" church. This illustrates the political incentive of the entire creed. It also invalidates every other statement in the creed. Because it is politically motivated, we cannot trust that the interpretations made are valid, because they are not coming from a place of service to God. They are coming from a place of service to the Roman empire.
When politics and the intentions of power become mixed with devotional teachings, the resulting teachings become invalidated. There is no representation of God in those resulting teachings. They become empty words. They have no authority from God, thus they have no power to help us.
A glaring interpretation of the Nicean creed is that the individuality between God and Jesus are blurred. By blurring their relationship and emphasizing that Jesus is "the only begotten son" of God and "became incarnate into man” we lose any notion of the relationship between Jesus and God. For all tenses and purposes, this Nicene Creed eliminates the loving relationship between Jesus and God by basically saying that Jesus is God.
The other offense here is that the Creed says that basically, God became a man. This means that God somehow came under the control of the physical world and was crucified. Why would God need to be crucified in order to redeem people? Are we saying that God does not have the ability to save people without dying on a cross? Are we saying that God does not control things? That he has to suffer for us?
No way. God does not have to suffer for us. God is the Controller of all things. God is the Creator of everything. God does not have to come under any rules. He makes the rules. If God wanted to save each and every one of us, He could do this quite simply by one thought. (He chooses to "save" only those who want to return to Him. In other words, He gives us free will.)
The idea that God became Jesus so that he could die on the cross is an utter falsehood, and we can attest to this with the previous text by God (see below) about being pleased with Jesus. From this text we can see there are two individuals: God and Jesus. The only way one can be pleased with another is that they are different individuals. Otherwise, one is simply pleased with himself.
Jesus was the loving servant of God. He is the child of God just as we are all children of God. This idea of being the "only begotten son" of God was taught in an attempt to control others with exclusivity. Who "begot" us then? And we are not God's children, then why did Jesus say:
"They are God's children...." (Luke 20:26)
If Jesus was the only child of God (to be a child means to be begotten) then why did he describe others as being God's children.
The ecclesiastical Christians will say that Jesus is the only begotten son, and we are also children of God, but just not begotten by Him.
Is it that God is so impotent that He can only beget one son?
Who begot us then? To be begotten means to be created. Surely this language was put forth to be politically expedient. They had to create a statement that would give their church the sole access to God. Without their church, the people would have no other way to reach God.
This isn't the situation at all. Jesus is the child and loving servant of God. As God's child and loving servant, God empowered Jesus to represent Him. Jesus' life was spent serving God in an effort to please Him. This is because Jesus practiced what he preached: he loved God with all his heart. It is Jesus' loving service, and the teachings that came from that loving service that have the ability to save us. And this is why God said, "Listen to him!” (Matt. 17:4)
Because God’s appearances in the Bible have been shrouded in power and mystery, and there are many statements about “fearing” God, there has been a tendency among the Christian world to fear God rather than love Him. This is an unfortunate situation. It just so happens that much of the current Bible’s translations as they were put from Aramaic to Greek, were revised within the context of the Council of Nicea. The first council was assembled by Constantine, who wanted to organize and control the Christian world. The first Council of Nicea accepted and rejected certain translations of many scriptural writings, and assembled the Bible into books. They screened out and tossed out certain texts that did not meet their political objectives.
During the Council of Nicea assembly, it was decided that it would better meet their objectives if God the Father were a God the people feared. If the people feared God, then they would come to church under threat that He would punish them with hell if they did not attend church and pay tithings.
For this reason, we find many translations, especially among the books of the Old Testament using the phrase “fear God” rather than its original intention “love God” or “honor God,” or even “respect God.” We know this because of the loving relationship that existed between God and many of the saints of the Bible, such as Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon, Jonah and so many others. We also have to consider Moses' command, which was reiterated by Jesus:
“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment.” (Matt. 22:37-38)
With respect to the Council of Nicea, there were several other critical decisions made by the first council, including the Nicene Creed, which has been inherited by nearly every Christian church and sect over the hundreds of years since its writing. Part of the creed says:
"In one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church."
Notice the intent to form one "authorized" church. This illustrates the political incentive of the entire creed. It also invalidates every other statement in the creed. Because it is politically motivated, we cannot trust that the interpretations made are valid, because they are not coming from a place of service to God. They are coming from a place of service to the Roman empire.
When politics and the intentions of power become mixed with devotional teachings, the resulting teachings become invalidated. There is no representation of God in those resulting teachings. They become empty words. They have no authority from God, thus they have no power to help us.
A glaring interpretation of the Nicean creed is that the individuality between God and Jesus are blurred. By blurring their relationship and emphasizing that Jesus is "the only begotten son" of God and "became incarnate into man” we lose any notion of the relationship between Jesus and God. For all tenses and purposes, this Nicene Creed eliminates the loving relationship between Jesus and God by basically saying that Jesus is God.
The other offense here is that the Creed says that basically, God became a man. This means that God somehow came under the control of the physical world and was crucified. Why would God need to be crucified in order to redeem people? Are we saying that God does not have the ability to save people without dying on a cross? Are we saying that God does not control things? That he has to suffer for us?
No way. God does not have to suffer for us. God is the Controller of all things. God is the Creator of everything. God does not have to come under any rules. He makes the rules. If God wanted to save each and every one of us, He could do this quite simply by one thought. (He chooses to "save" only those who want to return to Him. In other words, He gives us free will.)
The idea that God became Jesus so that he could die on the cross is an utter falsehood, and we can attest to this with the previous text by God (see below) about being pleased with Jesus. From this text we can see there are two individuals: God and Jesus. The only way one can be pleased with another is that they are different individuals. Otherwise, one is simply pleased with himself.
Jesus was the loving servant of God. He is the child of God just as we are all children of God. This idea of being the "only begotten son" of God was taught in an attempt to control others with exclusivity. Who "begot" us then? And we are not God's children, then why did Jesus say:
"They are God's children...." (Luke 20:26)
If Jesus was the only child of God (to be a child means to be begotten) then why did he describe others as being God's children.
The ecclesiastical Christians will say that Jesus is the only begotten son, and we are also children of God, but just not begotten by Him.
Is it that God is so impotent that He can only beget one son?
Who begot us then? To be begotten means to be created. Surely this language was put forth to be politically expedient. They had to create a statement that would give their church the sole access to God. Without their church, the people would have no other way to reach God.
This isn't the situation at all. Jesus is the child and loving servant of God. As God's child and loving servant, God empowered Jesus to represent Him. Jesus' life was spent serving God in an effort to please Him. This is because Jesus practiced what he preached: he loved God with all his heart. It is Jesus' loving service, and the teachings that came from that loving service that have the ability to save us. And this is why God said, "Listen to him!” (Matt. 17:4)
“This is my son [loving servant], whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!” (Matt. 17:4)
Here we take a departure from quoting only Jesus, to quote God Himself. This took place upon a high mountain. Jesus went there with Peter, James and John in tow. First they saw Jesus’ face and body light up and shine like the sun. Then they saw the forms of Moses and Elijah speaking with Jesus. Then a bright cloud covered them, and a distinct voice from the cloud said the above words.
Since Jesus was there, speaking with Moses and Elijah, and the cloud enveloped all of them, and because the voice was speaking of Jesus in the third person, we have to concede that the voice was God’s voice. Who else would be speaking of Jesus in this context?
The English translators have used "son", but the translation of the Greek word "pias" would be more appropriately translated to "servant," or more affectionately, “child and loving servant.” The translation to "son" excludes the relationship of affection and servitude that is inherent in the word "pias."
Certainly if someone is pleased with someone’s activities, then those activities are being done within the context of service. By God saying that He was pleased with Jesus, we know that Jesus must have been working for the pleasure of God. In other words, Jesus was trying to please God. Thus we can say without any doubt that Jesus’ role was one of a loving servant of God who was trying to please God with his activities.
This is very clear, not only from this statement, but the many statements by Jesus as well. Consider this statement, made by Jesus:
"Yes, you know me, and you know where I am from. I am not here on my own, but He who sent me is true. You do not know Him, but I know Him because I am from Him and He sent me." (John 7:28-29)
This makes the relationship between God and Jesus very clear. It is obvious that Jesus is not God, but rather, God's servant. God has sent Jesus as His messenger.
From the above statement by God (Matt 17:4) we can see that God is an individual Who is separate from Jesus. For someone to be pleased with someone else’s activities, there must be two individuals with two separate functions. The one who is pleased obviously has to have a separate identity from the one who is trying to please that person. Working to please someone else necessitates two individuals.
In addition, the one who pleases the other must have a choice to do things that are pleasing or not. Otherwise, there would be no possibility of pleasure, because the actions would be expected.
Here we can see the affection between God and Jesus. We see that God is pleased with Jesus. By this we can see that there is a loving relationship between God and Jesus. A loving relationship requires individuality and some measure of the freedom to choose whether to please the other person or not.
God then goes on to comment about Jesus' teachings: “Listen to him!” God says. What does this tell us? Notice that God didn't say, "Wait until Jesus dies on the cross and then you will be saved." He tells us to listen to Jesus' teachings.
Why? Because it is Jesus' teachings that can save us, should we decide to listen to those teachings, and follow them.
It is not as if we simply have to go to church and "bathe in the blood" of Jesus and we are saved. This is ludicrous.
We can also see from God's statement what we can do to please God: We can listen to Jesus’ teachings, and we can follow his instructions. We can follow in Jesus' footsteps and become devoted to God. Should we do this, we will also become pleasing to God.
And what was Jesus' most important teaching?
“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment.” (Matt. 22:37-40)
Since Jesus was there, speaking with Moses and Elijah, and the cloud enveloped all of them, and because the voice was speaking of Jesus in the third person, we have to concede that the voice was God’s voice. Who else would be speaking of Jesus in this context?
The English translators have used "son", but the translation of the Greek word "pias" would be more appropriately translated to "servant," or more affectionately, “child and loving servant.” The translation to "son" excludes the relationship of affection and servitude that is inherent in the word "pias."
Certainly if someone is pleased with someone’s activities, then those activities are being done within the context of service. By God saying that He was pleased with Jesus, we know that Jesus must have been working for the pleasure of God. In other words, Jesus was trying to please God. Thus we can say without any doubt that Jesus’ role was one of a loving servant of God who was trying to please God with his activities.
This is very clear, not only from this statement, but the many statements by Jesus as well. Consider this statement, made by Jesus:
"Yes, you know me, and you know where I am from. I am not here on my own, but He who sent me is true. You do not know Him, but I know Him because I am from Him and He sent me." (John 7:28-29)
This makes the relationship between God and Jesus very clear. It is obvious that Jesus is not God, but rather, God's servant. God has sent Jesus as His messenger.
From the above statement by God (Matt 17:4) we can see that God is an individual Who is separate from Jesus. For someone to be pleased with someone else’s activities, there must be two individuals with two separate functions. The one who is pleased obviously has to have a separate identity from the one who is trying to please that person. Working to please someone else necessitates two individuals.
In addition, the one who pleases the other must have a choice to do things that are pleasing or not. Otherwise, there would be no possibility of pleasure, because the actions would be expected.
Here we can see the affection between God and Jesus. We see that God is pleased with Jesus. By this we can see that there is a loving relationship between God and Jesus. A loving relationship requires individuality and some measure of the freedom to choose whether to please the other person or not.
God then goes on to comment about Jesus' teachings: “Listen to him!” God says. What does this tell us? Notice that God didn't say, "Wait until Jesus dies on the cross and then you will be saved." He tells us to listen to Jesus' teachings.
Why? Because it is Jesus' teachings that can save us, should we decide to listen to those teachings, and follow them.
It is not as if we simply have to go to church and "bathe in the blood" of Jesus and we are saved. This is ludicrous.
We can also see from God's statement what we can do to please God: We can listen to Jesus’ teachings, and we can follow his instructions. We can follow in Jesus' footsteps and become devoted to God. Should we do this, we will also become pleasing to God.
And what was Jesus' most important teaching?
“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment.” (Matt. 22:37-40)
“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? For the son of man is going to come in his Father’s glory with His angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done. I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the son of man coming in His kingdom.” (Matt. 16:24-28)
"If anyone would come after me" means to follow Jesus. It means to follow in Jesus' footsteps. We must understand that Jesus was God's loving servant, and he wanted us to also become God's loving servants.
Here Jesus confirms that his role is to show people what it means to do the will of God and give ones life to God. There are many who make a show of their faith in different celebrations, of literally carrying a heavy cross or putting holes in their hands. This is not what Jesus is talking about.
Jesus is not talking about making a display of carrying a cross. He was encouraging each of those he was speaking to, and those of us reading his words, to make their own personal sacrifices in an attempt to please God. This means that typically, no one but God will really see our sacrifices.
In fact, by putting on a display of our supposed sacrifices, we lose the ability for those activities to be pleasing to God. This is because the sacrifices that are displayed for others to see become a means to gain the attention and admiration of others. This offends God and cancels any pleasing affect, because the intention of the supposed sacrifice was self-serving rather than God-serving.
This is also communicated by Jesus when he says, "What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?" "Gains the whole world" includes not only wealth and power, but it includes the admiration and respect of others. We must be willing to serve God even if we become unpopular among others by doing so. Jesus illustrated this in his life as he and his teachings were so unpopular among the Jews and the Romans.
Our spiritual nature is to love God and love others. As we strive for the admiration and respect of others, we lose the ability to please God. In other words, we must choose or the other. We can't serve two masters at once.
Gaining the admiration and respect of others in the world typically means helping others achieve their own goals of wealth, admiration and respect. In fact, many Christian ministers today preach about how a person can use Jesus to become wealthy, popular and become successful in their business ventures. This teaching is diametrically opposed to Jesus' teachings. Jesus' statement above says to "deny himself". To deny oneself means to not focus on the things that please me, but rather, strive to please God. By teaching others to pray to gain their desires, these supposedly Christian teachers are telling us to use God for our own selfish purposes. Do you think that this is really what Jesus taught? Is this what Jesus meant by us doing God's will? Certainly not. Doing God's will means doing God's will, not using God to do our will.
This doesn't mean that we have to reject wealth, or reject the respect of others. It means that we recognize who owns everything (God) and use whatever we have been given in the service of God. And we do not sacrifice our relationship with God while chasing these things.
Jesus’ last two sentences might be puzzling to some. In fact, many legends have been created surrounding Jesus’ “second coming.” Ecclesiastical Christian teachings like to depict Jesus riding through the sky on a horse with a big sword and the angels, swooping up those who followed him, while punishing the others (with his big sword?) This image is often combined with the ‘gnashing of teeth’ depictions of a great world calamity, during which he would descend to gather up the ‘chosen ones.’
This image must be clarified. We must understand that the body is a temporary vehicle for the spiritual self. Each of us is a spiritual being, and we will each leave our temporary physical bodies after the body gets old and/or diseased. This has been scientifically established by thousands of clinical death or near-death experiences (NDE). Once we leave the body, the body decomposes. The body will exist no more.
Our spiritual selves will continue to exist, however. After the death of this body, we will be escorted either to another physical body (one of the two types of "resurrection"), or, if we have turned to God and developed our love for God (as Jesus asks us to do), we will return to God (the other type of "resurrection"), back to the spiritual world.
Those who have been guided by Jesus’ teachings and who have advanced spiritually via Jesus’ teachings, will be escorted by Jesus back to God after the death of their body. This is the role of a spiritual teacher. The spiritual teacher on the physical plane guides or escorts the faithful student back to God after the death of the body.
The unfaithful will meet a different result. They will be guided to the lower levels of physical existence. This might be described as hell. They are put into the bodies of various other types of creatures. They might be put into the body of a wolf, a monkey, a dog, or perhaps an insect. Each of these species undergoes a specific dose of pain and suffering. (Consider the hellishness of being constantly chased and eaten by larger creatures.) In fact, an unfaithful person who has performed painful acts upon others will likely take on specific bodies whereby they suffer precisely the same pains that they inflicted upon others ("as you sow, so shall you reap"). This is also confirmed by Jesus' statement above that everyone will be “rewarded according to what he has done”.
The "second coming" of Jesus is somewhat different than the popular depiction. Each of us has an opportunity to experience Jesus' "second coming" at the time of the death of our body. For those who have dedicated their lives in truly following Jesus' instructions and have come to love God, Jesus will come to them at the time of death to guide them back home to God. They will be protected in their journey out of this body, and thus "will not taste death". Because they gave up the chase for the admiration of others and all the other trappings of this world, and dedicated their lives to the service to God, Jesus will be personally pleased, and he will be there for us to guide us home.
Here Jesus confirms that his role is to show people what it means to do the will of God and give ones life to God. There are many who make a show of their faith in different celebrations, of literally carrying a heavy cross or putting holes in their hands. This is not what Jesus is talking about.
Jesus is not talking about making a display of carrying a cross. He was encouraging each of those he was speaking to, and those of us reading his words, to make their own personal sacrifices in an attempt to please God. This means that typically, no one but God will really see our sacrifices.
In fact, by putting on a display of our supposed sacrifices, we lose the ability for those activities to be pleasing to God. This is because the sacrifices that are displayed for others to see become a means to gain the attention and admiration of others. This offends God and cancels any pleasing affect, because the intention of the supposed sacrifice was self-serving rather than God-serving.
This is also communicated by Jesus when he says, "What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?" "Gains the whole world" includes not only wealth and power, but it includes the admiration and respect of others. We must be willing to serve God even if we become unpopular among others by doing so. Jesus illustrated this in his life as he and his teachings were so unpopular among the Jews and the Romans.
Our spiritual nature is to love God and love others. As we strive for the admiration and respect of others, we lose the ability to please God. In other words, we must choose or the other. We can't serve two masters at once.
Gaining the admiration and respect of others in the world typically means helping others achieve their own goals of wealth, admiration and respect. In fact, many Christian ministers today preach about how a person can use Jesus to become wealthy, popular and become successful in their business ventures. This teaching is diametrically opposed to Jesus' teachings. Jesus' statement above says to "deny himself". To deny oneself means to not focus on the things that please me, but rather, strive to please God. By teaching others to pray to gain their desires, these supposedly Christian teachers are telling us to use God for our own selfish purposes. Do you think that this is really what Jesus taught? Is this what Jesus meant by us doing God's will? Certainly not. Doing God's will means doing God's will, not using God to do our will.
This doesn't mean that we have to reject wealth, or reject the respect of others. It means that we recognize who owns everything (God) and use whatever we have been given in the service of God. And we do not sacrifice our relationship with God while chasing these things.
Jesus’ last two sentences might be puzzling to some. In fact, many legends have been created surrounding Jesus’ “second coming.” Ecclesiastical Christian teachings like to depict Jesus riding through the sky on a horse with a big sword and the angels, swooping up those who followed him, while punishing the others (with his big sword?) This image is often combined with the ‘gnashing of teeth’ depictions of a great world calamity, during which he would descend to gather up the ‘chosen ones.’
This image must be clarified. We must understand that the body is a temporary vehicle for the spiritual self. Each of us is a spiritual being, and we will each leave our temporary physical bodies after the body gets old and/or diseased. This has been scientifically established by thousands of clinical death or near-death experiences (NDE). Once we leave the body, the body decomposes. The body will exist no more.
Our spiritual selves will continue to exist, however. After the death of this body, we will be escorted either to another physical body (one of the two types of "resurrection"), or, if we have turned to God and developed our love for God (as Jesus asks us to do), we will return to God (the other type of "resurrection"), back to the spiritual world.
Those who have been guided by Jesus’ teachings and who have advanced spiritually via Jesus’ teachings, will be escorted by Jesus back to God after the death of their body. This is the role of a spiritual teacher. The spiritual teacher on the physical plane guides or escorts the faithful student back to God after the death of the body.
The unfaithful will meet a different result. They will be guided to the lower levels of physical existence. This might be described as hell. They are put into the bodies of various other types of creatures. They might be put into the body of a wolf, a monkey, a dog, or perhaps an insect. Each of these species undergoes a specific dose of pain and suffering. (Consider the hellishness of being constantly chased and eaten by larger creatures.) In fact, an unfaithful person who has performed painful acts upon others will likely take on specific bodies whereby they suffer precisely the same pains that they inflicted upon others ("as you sow, so shall you reap"). This is also confirmed by Jesus' statement above that everyone will be “rewarded according to what he has done”.
The "second coming" of Jesus is somewhat different than the popular depiction. Each of us has an opportunity to experience Jesus' "second coming" at the time of the death of our body. For those who have dedicated their lives in truly following Jesus' instructions and have come to love God, Jesus will come to them at the time of death to guide them back home to God. They will be protected in their journey out of this body, and thus "will not taste death". Because they gave up the chase for the admiration of others and all the other trappings of this world, and dedicated their lives to the service to God, Jesus will be personally pleased, and he will be there for us to guide us home.
“Out of my sight satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God but the things of men.” (Matt. 16:22)
Jesus said this directly to Peter, one of his disciples. Had Peter suddenly become satan?
Peter had heard Jesus explaining that he would go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised. Peter was upset to hear this, and said to Jesus, “Never, Lord, this shall never happen to you!” (Matt. 16:22)
So why was Jesus so upset with Peter to the point where he called him satan, and told Peter to get away from him?
The answer lies in understanding the position of Jesus. Jesus identified himself as the humble servant of God. His intention was to do the will of God. He knew what was going to happen to his body. He knew that he would be making a sacrifice for God: A very painful and tough sacrifice.
There was certainly a great temptation - especially since he knew it would happen - for Jesus to avoid Jerusalem completely and thus avoid having to make this sacrifice and service to God. He could have easily thought of his own comfort and avoided the entire ordeal.
But this was not Jesus’ choice. He understand this was part of his mission. This was part of his service to God. To avoid doing it would be to avoid serving the God that he loved and cared for.
We can thus see clearly the meaning of “satan” as defined by Jesus. “Satan” is not a mythological person with a pitch fork who lives in a cave of fire. “Satan” is the intent to please oneself. “Satan” is self-centeredness. “Satan” is the rejection of God's will in lieu of our own will (also referred to as "evil").
This is why, when Jesus was tempted in the desert, he said:
"Away from me, satan! For it is written: 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only.'" (Matt. 4:10)
Jesus was fighting the temptations of the world in order to serve God.
Because Peter was presenting to Jesus the selfish choice that went against the will of God, Jesus called him satan. Peter wanted Jesus to avoid the punishment. This made Peter the representative of the temptation to consider the comforts of the body first and avoid the service to God. Jesus confirmed this as he said clearly: “You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men."
In other words, Peter's focus was identifying Jesus as the physical body and not seeing Jesus' loving service relationship with God.
Peter had heard Jesus explaining that he would go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised. Peter was upset to hear this, and said to Jesus, “Never, Lord, this shall never happen to you!” (Matt. 16:22)
So why was Jesus so upset with Peter to the point where he called him satan, and told Peter to get away from him?
The answer lies in understanding the position of Jesus. Jesus identified himself as the humble servant of God. His intention was to do the will of God. He knew what was going to happen to his body. He knew that he would be making a sacrifice for God: A very painful and tough sacrifice.
There was certainly a great temptation - especially since he knew it would happen - for Jesus to avoid Jerusalem completely and thus avoid having to make this sacrifice and service to God. He could have easily thought of his own comfort and avoided the entire ordeal.
But this was not Jesus’ choice. He understand this was part of his mission. This was part of his service to God. To avoid doing it would be to avoid serving the God that he loved and cared for.
We can thus see clearly the meaning of “satan” as defined by Jesus. “Satan” is not a mythological person with a pitch fork who lives in a cave of fire. “Satan” is the intent to please oneself. “Satan” is self-centeredness. “Satan” is the rejection of God's will in lieu of our own will (also referred to as "evil").
This is why, when Jesus was tempted in the desert, he said:
"Away from me, satan! For it is written: 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only.'" (Matt. 4:10)
Jesus was fighting the temptations of the world in order to serve God.
Because Peter was presenting to Jesus the selfish choice that went against the will of God, Jesus called him satan. Peter wanted Jesus to avoid the punishment. This made Peter the representative of the temptation to consider the comforts of the body first and avoid the service to God. Jesus confirmed this as he said clearly: “You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men."
In other words, Peter's focus was identifying Jesus as the physical body and not seeing Jesus' loving service relationship with God.
“Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” (Matt. 16:17-19)
Jesus said this to Simon after Simon said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." (Matt. 16:16)
Why was Jesus so pleased by Simon’s (renamed Peter) response? Just saying that Jesus was the son of the living God? Why was this something that could not have been revealed to Peter by man? Certainly, as many ecclesiastical Christians disseminate, it is easy to answer that Jesus was the son of God. Why was Simon's statement revealed to him by God rather than man?
The two operators of Simon's statement are Jesus’ being the “son” or loving servant and child of God, and Jesus being the “savior” (“Christ” or Messiah”).
As we have discussed earlier, the translation of the Greek "pias" can be either "son" or "related loving servant." The later is the more applicable of the two. Still we can understand that even the word “son” is also synonymous to the word “child.” A “son” is a child of the father. There are many references by Jesus about the realization of ones relationship with God as His intimate child. In Luke 20:34-34, Jesus said: “The people of this age…. And they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children…” Here Jesus talks about people who grow in their spiritual maturity, and become elevated to the stature of becoming God’s loving children. In this we see the intimacy of a loving relationship with God.
Are we seeing anywhere that Jesus is indicating that he is the only child or son of God? No. How about Jesus’ disciples? Did they understand Jesus’ meaning of him being the “son of God” to be God's only son? Is God so limited that He can have only one son?
To the contrary, as Jesus also said:
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.” (Matt. 5:9)
Jesus’ disciples also understood that we could all inherit our place as sons or children of God. In Romans 8:14, Paul wrote: “…because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.”
In this statement by Paul, we can also apply the better translation of "pias" as "loving servant." If a person is being "led" by God, then they are in fact, a servant rather than a son. A "son" in the strict sense, would have no option but to follow his father (in those days). However, if they are choosing to follow and be led, then they would better be described as a loving servant.
Paul also wrote in Galatians 4:6: “Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of His son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out “Abba, Father.” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.”
Here Paul is emphasizing the fact that we are related to God, and we are related loving servants rather than slaves. We can serve God, but as His loving children, not slaves. Slavery means we have no choice, and God has given us the freedom to love Him or not.
Thus a better translation of “son of God” is a “loving servant and child of God.”
Now with regard to being “the Christ” which is the same word also translated to mean “Messiah,” we must understand the origin and meaning of this word rather than how it has been defined ecclesiastically by the Christian and Jewish doctrines.
The origin of the word from Aramaic means "the anointed” or “anointed one.” The related word used interchangeably is the word “Christ” which is most closely translated as “savior.”
The concept of an “anointed one” comes from the ancient Hebrew concept of a person being chosen by God to unite the tribes of Israel and usher in a day of peace and prosperity. This has become termed as the “messianic age.” However, we can see that "annointing" was performed between a priest and student:
So Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, Benaiah son of Jehoiada, the Kerethites and the Pelethites went down and put Solomon on King David's mule and escorted him to Gihon. Zadok the priest took the horn of oil from the sacred tent and anointed Solomon. (1 Kings 38-39)
Then the LORD said, "Rise and anoint him; he is the one."
So Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers, and from that day on the Spirit of the LORD came upon David in power. Samuel then went to Ramah.
(1 Samuel 16:1-13)
So we can see that many of the prophets were in fact, anointed. We can also see the usage of anointed and "savior" also indicates a reference for someone who would lead his followers into spiritual realization. If we consider the Bible as a resource for spiritual growth rather than a history book, we can see that so many teachers, such as Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon, Jacob and others were all chosen by God to teach to the people of Israel about God in hopes of delivering them or saving them.
As we investigate further, we find that the intended meaning of the word “messiah” or “anointed one” to be a person who was chosen by God to deliver or “save” a person spiritually by introducing them to God and teaching them in such a way that they become loving servants of God. It was a general term used to describe God's loving servants who taught on His behalf. It was stated as an esteemed post or position, because anyone God chose to represent Him is esteemed, because they have such a relationship with God.
Certainly these concepts of “saving” a person or “savior” has been misconstrued by both the ecclesiastical doctrines of the Jewish and Christian worlds. Why? Because these two organizations have lost the substance of the teachings of the Bible. They have become political organizations, and their leaders are now elected like politicians, by councils of people rather than God. Therefore, since no one among their political appointees was chosen by God, they create mythical definitions of this "messiah."
Let's state this simply: Any person who is engaged in a loving relationship with God and who has been chosen by God to represent Him becomes a messiah, Christ, chosen one, or anointed one.
Now while the Christian world reveres this identification of Jesus as the only Christ, Messiah, or son of God, they actually offend him at the same time. Why? Because they have made these titles empty. They have focused upon Jesus as though he was a tool or piece of machinery to be used in order to be saved. While they fervently and fanatically pressure people to admit that “Jesus is your savior,” they miss the meaning of what that “saving” actually is.
These fanatical "Christians" actually offend Jesus with this approach. Jesus confirms this when he said:
"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!' (Matt. 7:21-22)
Here Jesus plainly describes what is taking place today. He is describing how people are missing the point of Jesus’ teachings. Jesus did not come to put himself into the role of God, as many portend. Today's ecclesiastical Christian doctrine was proposed at the first Nicene Synod (a political assembly). Here the official doctrine that Jesus is “God the Son” was made. This began the misidentification of Jesus that has continued through ecclesiastical Christian churches today.
What is the problem with this doctrine? This doctrine has forgotten the very Person that Jesus came to teach us about. Instead of worshiping the God that Jesus came to teach us about and doing God's will, they figured that they would just put Jesus in that role. Now Jesus is supposed to be God, and it is taught that "God became man (in Jesus) and God died on the cross."
So God died? This is what they are teaching. They teach that God died on the cross, and then was resurrected in three days.
So they are saying that the Supreme Being, the Creator and Controller of the universe, came down to earth and became a human being, and then died in order to save us.
First of all, why, if God was the Controller of everything, would He have to be beaten and suffer on a cross and die in order to save us? Why would God subject Himself to that? Couldn't he just save us without having to suffer?
And what happened to the universe between the time when God supposedly died and when He was resurrected? Who took care of the universe during that time?
These are, quite simply, falsehoods. God never became Jesus. Jesus was the loving servant of God. Jesus' body was brutally tortured and murdered. His martyrdom is a testament to his faith and love for God. The reason that his suffering might be able to help us is by seeing how strong the relationship between Jesus and God was, that Jesus would give his very (physical body) life.
If God became Jesus, then who was Jesus praying to when he said:
"My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as You will." (Matt. 26:39)
Jesus came to teach us to come to a loving relationship with a Person that Jesus himself had a loving relationship with: God. Jesus was the loving servant and child of God, who made great sacrifices in order to teach us to love God. This was his mission.
Yes, it is true, that the loving servant and teacher of God can truly be perceived as connected with God. They are the representative of God and they are teaching God’s words. Thus they can and should be seen as a manifestation of God’s love for us. But they should never be confused with God the Person. It is God the Person that the teacher has come to teach us about.
Jesus might be compared to an ambassador, or representative of a country, being in another country. The country treats this representative in the same way they would treat the country's president. Any disrespecting of the ambassador would be offensive to the president. But at the same time, no one would say that this ambassador is the president or the government itself. It would be ridiculous to make that confusion.
So yes, there is no problem seeing Jesus as the “son (loving servant) of God,” and our “savior.” But we should understand the meaning of those words. They embellish an intimate relationship between Jesus and God (the "living God" as Simon put it). They indicate a relationship so intimate that it can only be revealed by God.
The loving relationship between God and Jesus is the rock upon which one can build their own relationship with God. This is the essence of the spiritual world: As we are each bound with a loving relationship with God. Those of us who have left that relationship can utilize the loving relationship between Jesus and God (i.e., Jesus' teachings) to become re-acquainted with God. This is the key to heaven that Jesus has given us.
Why was Jesus so pleased by Simon’s (renamed Peter) response? Just saying that Jesus was the son of the living God? Why was this something that could not have been revealed to Peter by man? Certainly, as many ecclesiastical Christians disseminate, it is easy to answer that Jesus was the son of God. Why was Simon's statement revealed to him by God rather than man?
The two operators of Simon's statement are Jesus’ being the “son” or loving servant and child of God, and Jesus being the “savior” (“Christ” or Messiah”).
As we have discussed earlier, the translation of the Greek "pias" can be either "son" or "related loving servant." The later is the more applicable of the two. Still we can understand that even the word “son” is also synonymous to the word “child.” A “son” is a child of the father. There are many references by Jesus about the realization of ones relationship with God as His intimate child. In Luke 20:34-34, Jesus said: “The people of this age…. And they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children…” Here Jesus talks about people who grow in their spiritual maturity, and become elevated to the stature of becoming God’s loving children. In this we see the intimacy of a loving relationship with God.
Are we seeing anywhere that Jesus is indicating that he is the only child or son of God? No. How about Jesus’ disciples? Did they understand Jesus’ meaning of him being the “son of God” to be God's only son? Is God so limited that He can have only one son?
To the contrary, as Jesus also said:
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.” (Matt. 5:9)
Jesus’ disciples also understood that we could all inherit our place as sons or children of God. In Romans 8:14, Paul wrote: “…because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.”
In this statement by Paul, we can also apply the better translation of "pias" as "loving servant." If a person is being "led" by God, then they are in fact, a servant rather than a son. A "son" in the strict sense, would have no option but to follow his father (in those days). However, if they are choosing to follow and be led, then they would better be described as a loving servant.
Paul also wrote in Galatians 4:6: “Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of His son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out “Abba, Father.” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.”
Here Paul is emphasizing the fact that we are related to God, and we are related loving servants rather than slaves. We can serve God, but as His loving children, not slaves. Slavery means we have no choice, and God has given us the freedom to love Him or not.
Thus a better translation of “son of God” is a “loving servant and child of God.”
Now with regard to being “the Christ” which is the same word also translated to mean “Messiah,” we must understand the origin and meaning of this word rather than how it has been defined ecclesiastically by the Christian and Jewish doctrines.
The origin of the word from Aramaic means "the anointed” or “anointed one.” The related word used interchangeably is the word “Christ” which is most closely translated as “savior.”
The concept of an “anointed one” comes from the ancient Hebrew concept of a person being chosen by God to unite the tribes of Israel and usher in a day of peace and prosperity. This has become termed as the “messianic age.” However, we can see that "annointing" was performed between a priest and student:
So Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, Benaiah son of Jehoiada, the Kerethites and the Pelethites went down and put Solomon on King David's mule and escorted him to Gihon. Zadok the priest took the horn of oil from the sacred tent and anointed Solomon. (1 Kings 38-39)
Then the LORD said, "Rise and anoint him; he is the one."
So Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers, and from that day on the Spirit of the LORD came upon David in power. Samuel then went to Ramah.
(1 Samuel 16:1-13)
So we can see that many of the prophets were in fact, anointed. We can also see the usage of anointed and "savior" also indicates a reference for someone who would lead his followers into spiritual realization. If we consider the Bible as a resource for spiritual growth rather than a history book, we can see that so many teachers, such as Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon, Jacob and others were all chosen by God to teach to the people of Israel about God in hopes of delivering them or saving them.
As we investigate further, we find that the intended meaning of the word “messiah” or “anointed one” to be a person who was chosen by God to deliver or “save” a person spiritually by introducing them to God and teaching them in such a way that they become loving servants of God. It was a general term used to describe God's loving servants who taught on His behalf. It was stated as an esteemed post or position, because anyone God chose to represent Him is esteemed, because they have such a relationship with God.
Certainly these concepts of “saving” a person or “savior” has been misconstrued by both the ecclesiastical doctrines of the Jewish and Christian worlds. Why? Because these two organizations have lost the substance of the teachings of the Bible. They have become political organizations, and their leaders are now elected like politicians, by councils of people rather than God. Therefore, since no one among their political appointees was chosen by God, they create mythical definitions of this "messiah."
Let's state this simply: Any person who is engaged in a loving relationship with God and who has been chosen by God to represent Him becomes a messiah, Christ, chosen one, or anointed one.
Now while the Christian world reveres this identification of Jesus as the only Christ, Messiah, or son of God, they actually offend him at the same time. Why? Because they have made these titles empty. They have focused upon Jesus as though he was a tool or piece of machinery to be used in order to be saved. While they fervently and fanatically pressure people to admit that “Jesus is your savior,” they miss the meaning of what that “saving” actually is.
These fanatical "Christians" actually offend Jesus with this approach. Jesus confirms this when he said:
"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!' (Matt. 7:21-22)
Here Jesus plainly describes what is taking place today. He is describing how people are missing the point of Jesus’ teachings. Jesus did not come to put himself into the role of God, as many portend. Today's ecclesiastical Christian doctrine was proposed at the first Nicene Synod (a political assembly). Here the official doctrine that Jesus is “God the Son” was made. This began the misidentification of Jesus that has continued through ecclesiastical Christian churches today.
What is the problem with this doctrine? This doctrine has forgotten the very Person that Jesus came to teach us about. Instead of worshiping the God that Jesus came to teach us about and doing God's will, they figured that they would just put Jesus in that role. Now Jesus is supposed to be God, and it is taught that "God became man (in Jesus) and God died on the cross."
So God died? This is what they are teaching. They teach that God died on the cross, and then was resurrected in three days.
So they are saying that the Supreme Being, the Creator and Controller of the universe, came down to earth and became a human being, and then died in order to save us.
First of all, why, if God was the Controller of everything, would He have to be beaten and suffer on a cross and die in order to save us? Why would God subject Himself to that? Couldn't he just save us without having to suffer?
And what happened to the universe between the time when God supposedly died and when He was resurrected? Who took care of the universe during that time?
These are, quite simply, falsehoods. God never became Jesus. Jesus was the loving servant of God. Jesus' body was brutally tortured and murdered. His martyrdom is a testament to his faith and love for God. The reason that his suffering might be able to help us is by seeing how strong the relationship between Jesus and God was, that Jesus would give his very (physical body) life.
If God became Jesus, then who was Jesus praying to when he said:
"My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as You will." (Matt. 26:39)
Jesus came to teach us to come to a loving relationship with a Person that Jesus himself had a loving relationship with: God. Jesus was the loving servant and child of God, who made great sacrifices in order to teach us to love God. This was his mission.
Yes, it is true, that the loving servant and teacher of God can truly be perceived as connected with God. They are the representative of God and they are teaching God’s words. Thus they can and should be seen as a manifestation of God’s love for us. But they should never be confused with God the Person. It is God the Person that the teacher has come to teach us about.
Jesus might be compared to an ambassador, or representative of a country, being in another country. The country treats this representative in the same way they would treat the country's president. Any disrespecting of the ambassador would be offensive to the president. But at the same time, no one would say that this ambassador is the president or the government itself. It would be ridiculous to make that confusion.
So yes, there is no problem seeing Jesus as the “son (loving servant) of God,” and our “savior.” But we should understand the meaning of those words. They embellish an intimate relationship between Jesus and God (the "living God" as Simon put it). They indicate a relationship so intimate that it can only be revealed by God.
The loving relationship between God and Jesus is the rock upon which one can build their own relationship with God. This is the essence of the spiritual world: As we are each bound with a loving relationship with God. Those of us who have left that relationship can utilize the loving relationship between Jesus and God (i.e., Jesus' teachings) to become re-acquainted with God. This is the key to heaven that Jesus has given us.
“But what about you? Who do you say I am?” (Matt. 16:15)
These questions were followed by Simon Peter answering in both Mark and Matthew: “You are the Christ (or Messiah).” As we will see from Jesus’ response, he did agree with this identification.
However, we must clearly understand what “Christ” or “Messiah” means. Both "Christ" (Greek) and "Messiah" (Hebrew) mean "anointed one." So what does "anointed one" mean? The "anointed one" means "one who has been chosen." In other words, "anointed one" requires that someone else anoint the "anointed one." There has to be an “anointee” so to speak. In other words, Jesus had to be "anointed" or "chosen" by someone. Who was that? Was it a group of Israelites or some rabbis that got together to chose Jesus? Hardly. Who was it, then?
It was God. God chose or anointed Jesus as His representative. God chose Jesus to teach on His behalf. This is the meaning of Messiah: God’s representative who comes to save us with God's teachings, must be chosen by God.
In Matthew, Peter also says that Jesus is the “son of the living God.” We have discussed the concept of “son” in Greek ("pias") having a double meaning with the word “servant.” In many instances, such as in the phrase “son of man,” it is obvious that “servant’ is the appropriate context.
In this regard, we find that on occasion Jesus used the word “Abba” to refer to God. While Abba was translated from Aramic to Greek and then English as “Father,” the real meaning of the word “Abba” has a more intimate flavor - one of total reliance and commitment. A more realistic translation of Abba, according to one Professor of Semitic Languages, might be conveyed with the word, “Daddy.”
A real relationship between a child and a father is often more intimate and loving than the concept of seed-giver. When we speak of love, as existed between Jesus and God, there is a intimate relationship. It should be added that this was considered radical during an era where the strict Jewish rabbis and doctrines dominated the religious conversation -- just as the modern Christian churches and other organized ritualistic religious organizations dominate the modern religious conversation.
Another indication of Jesus’ references to “Abba” and His children as an intimate loving exchange is expounded by Jesus’ description of one of the requirements for entering the kingdom of God:
“I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt. 18:3)
Consider how a child sees their parents: With complete reliance and trust. We can see from Jesus' statement that this attitude of reliance and innocence that must be developed between ourselves and God in order to mature spiritually. This is the mood of a humble loving servant - someone who is intimately related in the mood of an innocent, reliant child.
Indeed, there are many who would like to falsely position Jesus into the stature of the only ‘son of God.’ Jesus himself did not agree with this position, however. For example, in Matthew we find that Jesus said:
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.” (Matt. 5:9)
Here we see that the reference to “sons of God” is not a physical “son” and “father” relationship. As we are all children of God regardless of whether we advance spiritually, we can see that the concept of “sons of God” is a deeper one - one that transcends the physical body - one of a loving servant who is completely reliant upon God. In other words, those who “make peace,” (better translated as “finding peace with others and within their hearts") can become loving servants of God, just as Jesus was.
However, we must clearly understand what “Christ” or “Messiah” means. Both "Christ" (Greek) and "Messiah" (Hebrew) mean "anointed one." So what does "anointed one" mean? The "anointed one" means "one who has been chosen." In other words, "anointed one" requires that someone else anoint the "anointed one." There has to be an “anointee” so to speak. In other words, Jesus had to be "anointed" or "chosen" by someone. Who was that? Was it a group of Israelites or some rabbis that got together to chose Jesus? Hardly. Who was it, then?
It was God. God chose or anointed Jesus as His representative. God chose Jesus to teach on His behalf. This is the meaning of Messiah: God’s representative who comes to save us with God's teachings, must be chosen by God.
In Matthew, Peter also says that Jesus is the “son of the living God.” We have discussed the concept of “son” in Greek ("pias") having a double meaning with the word “servant.” In many instances, such as in the phrase “son of man,” it is obvious that “servant’ is the appropriate context.
In this regard, we find that on occasion Jesus used the word “Abba” to refer to God. While Abba was translated from Aramic to Greek and then English as “Father,” the real meaning of the word “Abba” has a more intimate flavor - one of total reliance and commitment. A more realistic translation of Abba, according to one Professor of Semitic Languages, might be conveyed with the word, “Daddy.”
A real relationship between a child and a father is often more intimate and loving than the concept of seed-giver. When we speak of love, as existed between Jesus and God, there is a intimate relationship. It should be added that this was considered radical during an era where the strict Jewish rabbis and doctrines dominated the religious conversation -- just as the modern Christian churches and other organized ritualistic religious organizations dominate the modern religious conversation.
Another indication of Jesus’ references to “Abba” and His children as an intimate loving exchange is expounded by Jesus’ description of one of the requirements for entering the kingdom of God:
“I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt. 18:3)
Consider how a child sees their parents: With complete reliance and trust. We can see from Jesus' statement that this attitude of reliance and innocence that must be developed between ourselves and God in order to mature spiritually. This is the mood of a humble loving servant - someone who is intimately related in the mood of an innocent, reliant child.
Indeed, there are many who would like to falsely position Jesus into the stature of the only ‘son of God.’ Jesus himself did not agree with this position, however. For example, in Matthew we find that Jesus said:
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.” (Matt. 5:9)
Here we see that the reference to “sons of God” is not a physical “son” and “father” relationship. As we are all children of God regardless of whether we advance spiritually, we can see that the concept of “sons of God” is a deeper one - one that transcends the physical body - one of a loving servant who is completely reliant upon God. In other words, those who “make peace,” (better translated as “finding peace with others and within their hearts") can become loving servants of God, just as Jesus was.
“Who do people say the son of man is?” (Matt. 16:13)
Jesus asked this question of his disciples. Their answer was:
"Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets." (Matt. 16:14)
Jesus' question has two components. The first component is naturally that Jesus had a concern regarding how the people perceived him. In other words, he wanted to make sure that the perception of who he was was correct. Why does this matter?
We can see by his disciples' answer that then, as is today, people were speculating about who Jesus was, despite his teachings about himself. It is important that people saw him as he was: God's servant. This is why Jesus said:
"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." (Matt. 7:21)
So in other words, we could call Jesus "lord" yet miss the entire point of his teachings: To love and serve God. (As doing someone's will means caring for them and serving them.)
The second component of Jesus' question lies within his self-identification as “the son of man.” What is the meaning of this proclamation? Let us examine this.
As we discussed earlier, throughout the English translation of both the old and new testaments there is the use of the word “son” when that word is difficult to understand in the context. What is a “son of man” anyway? While a man can certainly have a son, does it make sense that Jesus is describing himself as a son of a man? Certainly not.
We can therefore only logically understand the use of “man” in this context means “mankind,” or "humanity." Otherwise, the use of the word "man" simply has no practical meaning.
Within the context of “mankind” or "humanity," "son" still has no practical meaning.
However, the use of "son" becomes clarified by the history of biblical translations. The early Aramic and Hebrew texts of the Bible were all translated first into Greek, and the Greek translations formed the basis for the English versions accepted by the ecclesiastical church officials in the fourth century forward.
The word "son" is translated from the Greek word “pias.” "Pias" can mean either “son” or “servant,” as during those days, the father's son was was also his father's most trusted servant, and one who was a trusted servant but not the paternal son of the master was also called "pias." For this reason, many translations of the New Testament have utilized "servant" in place with "son," as in the New King James version:
"To you first, God, having raised up His Servant Jesus, sent Him to bless you, in turning every one of you away from his iniquities." (Acts 3:26 NKJV)
whereas the old King James version says:
"Unto you first God, having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities." (Acts 3:26 KJV)
From Hebrew texts, we also find the words "Abel" and "Ben" used to describe special prophets. These two words can also have the double meaning of "son" and "servant."
Consider this text from Genesis:
When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. (Genesis 6:1-3)
So here we have many "sons of God" as well as "daughters of men." Who are the "sons of God" here? Did God give birth to a limited number of "sons"? The translation has simply been misconstrued. These were "servants of God." Consider this statement:
All these now join their brothers the nobles, and bind themselves with a curse and an oath to follow the Law of God given through Moses the servant of God and to obey carefully all the commands, regulations and decrees of the LORD our Lord.
(Nehemiah 10:28-30)
Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses. (2 Corinthians 6:3-5)
Now we can insert some intelligence into the equation. Simply put, the expression “a servant of humanity” would certainly make sense should someone be identifying their mission, when in fact they were trying to help others achieve the goal of spiritual perfection. This would be the only practical and logical conclusion of Jesus' self-identification: He considered himself to be a “servant of humanity.”
Jesus was not the only servant of God to also be addressed as "son of man" when it came to their purpose of teaching people about God. This is confirmed when Ezekiel states:
Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around Him. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD. When I saw it, I fell facedown, and I heard the voice of one speaking.
He said to me, "Son of man, stand up on your feet and I will speak to you." As he spoke, the Spirit came into me and raised me to my feet, and I heard him speaking to me. He said: "Son of man, I am sending you to the Israelites, to a rebellious nation that has rebelled against me; they and their fathers have been in revolt against me to this very day. The people to whom I am sending you are obstinate and stubborn. Say to them, 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says.' And whether they listen or fail to listen—for they are a rebellious house—they will know that a prophet has been among them. And you, son of man, do not be afraid of them or their words. Do not be afraid, though briers and thorns are all around you and you live among scorpions. Do not be afraid of what they say or terrified by them, though they are a rebellious house. You must speak my words to them, whether they listen or fail to listen, for they are rebellious. But you, son of man, listen to what I say to you. Do not rebel like that rebellious house; open your mouth and eat what I give you." (Ezekiel 1:28-2:7)
If Jesus is the only “son of man,” why is Ezekiel being addressed this way? It is because “son of man” actually means “servant of humanity:” One who serves all of humanity, just as God was asking Ezekiel to do.
Let's consider an analogy. Let's say that someone is locked up in jail. The judge sends a message via a courier to the jailhouse to release the prisoner. As the courier enters the jailhouse, the prisoner recognizes the courier. He remembers seeing the courier in the courtroom, carrying the messages from the judge to the jails. The courier is greeted with great respect and appreciation by the prisoner, because what the courier delivered, released the prisoner.
In the same way, God's messenger dutifully delivers God's message that He wants us back. As the messenger does this, he sees himself as not only God's messenger: He sees himself as the servant of all of humanity.
"Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets." (Matt. 16:14)
Jesus' question has two components. The first component is naturally that Jesus had a concern regarding how the people perceived him. In other words, he wanted to make sure that the perception of who he was was correct. Why does this matter?
We can see by his disciples' answer that then, as is today, people were speculating about who Jesus was, despite his teachings about himself. It is important that people saw him as he was: God's servant. This is why Jesus said:
"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." (Matt. 7:21)
So in other words, we could call Jesus "lord" yet miss the entire point of his teachings: To love and serve God. (As doing someone's will means caring for them and serving them.)
The second component of Jesus' question lies within his self-identification as “the son of man.” What is the meaning of this proclamation? Let us examine this.
As we discussed earlier, throughout the English translation of both the old and new testaments there is the use of the word “son” when that word is difficult to understand in the context. What is a “son of man” anyway? While a man can certainly have a son, does it make sense that Jesus is describing himself as a son of a man? Certainly not.
We can therefore only logically understand the use of “man” in this context means “mankind,” or "humanity." Otherwise, the use of the word "man" simply has no practical meaning.
Within the context of “mankind” or "humanity," "son" still has no practical meaning.
However, the use of "son" becomes clarified by the history of biblical translations. The early Aramic and Hebrew texts of the Bible were all translated first into Greek, and the Greek translations formed the basis for the English versions accepted by the ecclesiastical church officials in the fourth century forward.
The word "son" is translated from the Greek word “pias.” "Pias" can mean either “son” or “servant,” as during those days, the father's son was was also his father's most trusted servant, and one who was a trusted servant but not the paternal son of the master was also called "pias." For this reason, many translations of the New Testament have utilized "servant" in place with "son," as in the New King James version:
"To you first, God, having raised up His Servant Jesus, sent Him to bless you, in turning every one of you away from his iniquities." (Acts 3:26 NKJV)
whereas the old King James version says:
"Unto you first God, having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities." (Acts 3:26 KJV)
From Hebrew texts, we also find the words "Abel" and "Ben" used to describe special prophets. These two words can also have the double meaning of "son" and "servant."
Consider this text from Genesis:
When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. (Genesis 6:1-3)
So here we have many "sons of God" as well as "daughters of men." Who are the "sons of God" here? Did God give birth to a limited number of "sons"? The translation has simply been misconstrued. These were "servants of God." Consider this statement:
All these now join their brothers the nobles, and bind themselves with a curse and an oath to follow the Law of God given through Moses the servant of God and to obey carefully all the commands, regulations and decrees of the LORD our Lord.
(Nehemiah 10:28-30)
Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses. (2 Corinthians 6:3-5)
Now we can insert some intelligence into the equation. Simply put, the expression “a servant of humanity” would certainly make sense should someone be identifying their mission, when in fact they were trying to help others achieve the goal of spiritual perfection. This would be the only practical and logical conclusion of Jesus' self-identification: He considered himself to be a “servant of humanity.”
Jesus was not the only servant of God to also be addressed as "son of man" when it came to their purpose of teaching people about God. This is confirmed when Ezekiel states:
Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around Him. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD. When I saw it, I fell facedown, and I heard the voice of one speaking.
He said to me, "Son of man, stand up on your feet and I will speak to you." As he spoke, the Spirit came into me and raised me to my feet, and I heard him speaking to me. He said: "Son of man, I am sending you to the Israelites, to a rebellious nation that has rebelled against me; they and their fathers have been in revolt against me to this very day. The people to whom I am sending you are obstinate and stubborn. Say to them, 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says.' And whether they listen or fail to listen—for they are a rebellious house—they will know that a prophet has been among them. And you, son of man, do not be afraid of them or their words. Do not be afraid, though briers and thorns are all around you and you live among scorpions. Do not be afraid of what they say or terrified by them, though they are a rebellious house. You must speak my words to them, whether they listen or fail to listen, for they are rebellious. But you, son of man, listen to what I say to you. Do not rebel like that rebellious house; open your mouth and eat what I give you." (Ezekiel 1:28-2:7)
If Jesus is the only “son of man,” why is Ezekiel being addressed this way? It is because “son of man” actually means “servant of humanity:” One who serves all of humanity, just as God was asking Ezekiel to do.
Let's consider an analogy. Let's say that someone is locked up in jail. The judge sends a message via a courier to the jailhouse to release the prisoner. As the courier enters the jailhouse, the prisoner recognizes the courier. He remembers seeing the courier in the courtroom, carrying the messages from the judge to the jails. The courier is greeted with great respect and appreciation by the prisoner, because what the courier delivered, released the prisoner.
In the same way, God's messenger dutifully delivers God's message that He wants us back. As the messenger does this, he sees himself as not only God's messenger: He sees himself as the servant of all of humanity.
"Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not see or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear? And don't you remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?" ["Twelve," they replied.] And when I broke the seven loaves for the four thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?" [They answered, "Seven."] "Do you still not understand?" (Mark 8:17-21)
Here again, the focus of Jesus' works with respect to miracles is about faith. Jesus is trying to illustrate the meaning and the potency of faith. He clearly states that a meaning and a message lay within the two miracles of feeding crowds on two different occasions. So what did the feedings mean? Did it mean that Jesus had miraculous power and we should worship him?
No. Jesus was trying to illustrate that we should have faith in God and rely upon God. Should we do this, then God will take care of us, and will provide not only what we need, but an everlasting bounty of love and happiness.
Within a loving relationship with God we find true happiness that will 'feed' our souls. This happiness brings us real fulfillment. Feeding our bodies may bring temporary fulfillment, but depending upon God, serving God and loving God brings upon us a deeper satiety.
The idea of faith is not simply becoming convinced that God exists: Faith means trust. We must trust in God. We must have confidence that He will deliver what we need, and we need only Him.
With the expansion of the bread after Jesus "blessed" it (i.e., offered it to God), Jesus illustrated what he had been teaching: That we should focus our lives upon God and not the things of the physical world. Just as the birds are taken care of, our bodies will be taken care of. Our focus, nonetheless, should be upon our relationship with God. This is where our permanent happiness lies. Our temporary body will soon be disgarded. It will be burned or buried under the ground where worms will eat it. The things of the body and of the physical world are all temporary, and will not satisfy us. Jesus is delivering an eternal message - one that will satisfy us.
No. Jesus was trying to illustrate that we should have faith in God and rely upon God. Should we do this, then God will take care of us, and will provide not only what we need, but an everlasting bounty of love and happiness.
Within a loving relationship with God we find true happiness that will 'feed' our souls. This happiness brings us real fulfillment. Feeding our bodies may bring temporary fulfillment, but depending upon God, serving God and loving God brings upon us a deeper satiety.
The idea of faith is not simply becoming convinced that God exists: Faith means trust. We must trust in God. We must have confidence that He will deliver what we need, and we need only Him.
With the expansion of the bread after Jesus "blessed" it (i.e., offered it to God), Jesus illustrated what he had been teaching: That we should focus our lives upon God and not the things of the physical world. Just as the birds are taken care of, our bodies will be taken care of. Our focus, nonetheless, should be upon our relationship with God. This is where our permanent happiness lies. Our temporary body will soon be disgarded. It will be burned or buried under the ground where worms will eat it. The things of the body and of the physical world are all temporary, and will not satisfy us. Jesus is delivering an eternal message - one that will satisfy us.
“You of little faith, why are you talking among yourselves about having no bread? Do you still not understand? Don't you remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered? Or the seven loaves for the four thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered? How is it you don't understand that I was not talking to you about bread? But be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” (Matt. 16:8-11)
Notice that Jesus repeats the statement about the pharisees and sadducees, because the disciples thought he was talking about bread. Rather, the yeast and bread was an analogy, as explained in the commentary after his previous statement (see below, Matt. 16:5).
Following this statement, it is then confirmed: Then they understood that he was not telling them to guard against the yeast used in bread, but against the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees. (Matt. 16:12). While this sums up the realization of Jesus' parable of the yeast, there is a further message being taught with Jesus' comments on the official clergy of that time.
The question now is: What does the miracle of the loaves have to do with the sadducees and pharisees?
Here again, Jesus clarifies that his miracles are about faith. Jesus is trying to illustrate the meaning and the potency of faith. He clearly states that a meaning and a message lay within the two miracles of feeding crowds on two different occasions. So what did the feeding mean? Did it mean that Jesus had miraculous power and we should worship him?
No. Jesus was trying to illustrate that we should have faith in God and rely upon Him. Should we do this, then He will take care of us, and will provide not only what we need, but an everlasting bounty of love and happiness. Within a loving relationship with God we find true happiness that will 'feed' our souls. This happiness brings us real fulfillment. Feeding our bodies may bring temporary fulfillment, but depending upon God, serving God and loving God brings upon us a deeper satiety.
By mass producing bread, Jesus illustrated what he had been teaching: That we should focus our lives upon God and not the things of the world. Just as the birds are taken care of, our bodies will be taken care of. Or not. Our focus, however, should be upon our relationship with God. This is where our permanent happiness lies. Our temporary body will soon be discarded. It will be burned or buried under the ground where worms will eat it. The fulfillment of that body is merely temporary. Jesus is bringing us a permanent message.
The official ecclesiastical clergy of the pharisees and sadducees were teaching (and still are in the form of the official teachers of the modern-day Christian churches) a poisonous philosophy that puts ritual and group-joining above ones relationship with God. The pharisees and sadducees taught that following the various Jewish rituals were satisfactory for the accomplishment of spiritual life. This, Jesus taught, was untrue.
It is doing the will of God - pleasing God - within a loving relationship that is the goal of spiritual life. The rules and rituals may assist one, as long as a person sees their ultimate purpose, which is re-establishing our loving relationship with God.
Ironically, the modern-day Christian churches and their ecclesiastical officials - who were supposed to be disseminating Jesus' teachings - have missed this focus. Instead of focusing upon loving God and doing the will of God, the modern-day Christian officials now teach "being saved" by consecrating rituals and joining this sect or that sect for the sake of being able to say "I am a Christian - I am saved." God has been forgotten in this ritualistic sectarian system. Even though Jesus repeatedly clarified that he was God's messenger (and not God), the modern-day Christian church is claiming that Jesus is God. Who did Jesus pray to if he was God? Who was Jesus talking about when he said:
"For I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it. I know that His command leads to eternal life. So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say." (John 12:47-50)
God, the Father who sent Jesus, has been forgotten by the Christian church. Jesus asked us to love God with all our heart and soul. Now the modern Christian church ignores God. This is an identical situation as with the pharisees and sadducees of Jesus' day.
Following this statement, it is then confirmed: Then they understood that he was not telling them to guard against the yeast used in bread, but against the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees. (Matt. 16:12). While this sums up the realization of Jesus' parable of the yeast, there is a further message being taught with Jesus' comments on the official clergy of that time.
The question now is: What does the miracle of the loaves have to do with the sadducees and pharisees?
Here again, Jesus clarifies that his miracles are about faith. Jesus is trying to illustrate the meaning and the potency of faith. He clearly states that a meaning and a message lay within the two miracles of feeding crowds on two different occasions. So what did the feeding mean? Did it mean that Jesus had miraculous power and we should worship him?
No. Jesus was trying to illustrate that we should have faith in God and rely upon Him. Should we do this, then He will take care of us, and will provide not only what we need, but an everlasting bounty of love and happiness. Within a loving relationship with God we find true happiness that will 'feed' our souls. This happiness brings us real fulfillment. Feeding our bodies may bring temporary fulfillment, but depending upon God, serving God and loving God brings upon us a deeper satiety.
By mass producing bread, Jesus illustrated what he had been teaching: That we should focus our lives upon God and not the things of the world. Just as the birds are taken care of, our bodies will be taken care of. Or not. Our focus, however, should be upon our relationship with God. This is where our permanent happiness lies. Our temporary body will soon be discarded. It will be burned or buried under the ground where worms will eat it. The fulfillment of that body is merely temporary. Jesus is bringing us a permanent message.
The official ecclesiastical clergy of the pharisees and sadducees were teaching (and still are in the form of the official teachers of the modern-day Christian churches) a poisonous philosophy that puts ritual and group-joining above ones relationship with God. The pharisees and sadducees taught that following the various Jewish rituals were satisfactory for the accomplishment of spiritual life. This, Jesus taught, was untrue.
It is doing the will of God - pleasing God - within a loving relationship that is the goal of spiritual life. The rules and rituals may assist one, as long as a person sees their ultimate purpose, which is re-establishing our loving relationship with God.
Ironically, the modern-day Christian churches and their ecclesiastical officials - who were supposed to be disseminating Jesus' teachings - have missed this focus. Instead of focusing upon loving God and doing the will of God, the modern-day Christian officials now teach "being saved" by consecrating rituals and joining this sect or that sect for the sake of being able to say "I am a Christian - I am saved." God has been forgotten in this ritualistic sectarian system. Even though Jesus repeatedly clarified that he was God's messenger (and not God), the modern-day Christian church is claiming that Jesus is God. Who did Jesus pray to if he was God? Who was Jesus talking about when he said:
"For I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it. I know that His command leads to eternal life. So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say." (John 12:47-50)
God, the Father who sent Jesus, has been forgotten by the Christian church. Jesus asked us to love God with all our heart and soul. Now the modern Christian church ignores God. This is an identical situation as with the pharisees and sadducees of Jesus' day.
“Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” (Matt. 16:5)
Jesus is responding to the mention by his disciples that they forgot to bring bread on their journey across the lake.
Jesus is not talking bread and yeast here. Jesus took the opportunity to draw an analogy using bread and yeast. So what is the analogy?
Jesus is comparing the teachings of these ecclesiastic religious leaders to yeast. Why? Because yeast ferments, and through this fermentation, the bread rises. The yeast spreads throughout the flour during the process of rising, and insidiously saturates the bread as it begins to take shape, becoming part of the bread.
In the same way, the organized ecclesiastical church officials - men who hold their positions due to political advantage and the passing of (today's) mechanized schools and standardized tests - poison the population with mistranslations of scripture and theology based upon former political ambitions of rulers like Constantine and his successors, who highjacked the teachings of Jesus and forced new translations. They also assembled the Bible with their 'approved' books. They covered their tracks by destroying many Gnostic scriptures that clarified the true teachings of Jesus and the position of the representative of God.
Through political ambition to control Europe by controlling Christianity, Constantine organized the Synods of Nicea, which brought together politically-oriented bishops from around Europe. These bishops voted (under political pressure by Constantine) on the 'approved' translations and versions of scripture, and this was infused into new translations from the Greek versions. This political pressure removed many of Jesus' teachings from the historical record. After the burning of most of the 'unapproved' scriptures and the persecution of many of the teachers who followed Jesus and his disciples' teachings implicitly, what is left of Jesus' teachings is but a shadow of their true glory. What is left has been misinterpreted and hidden within sermons that focus, ironically, on many of the areas that Jesus implicitly taught were not as important as serving and pleasing God: Such as family matters and church functions. This yeast analogy perfectly describes what has transpired over the centuries as Jesus' teachings have been insulted and offended by political agendas.
Still, because God is in ultimate control, there enough of Jesus' teachings to provide clarity and evidence for his true position as the loving servant and representative of God. We also see that God made sure that some of the original Gnostic texts survived, as they were found about 60 years ago in an abandoned cave in the middle east.
This same political positioning and deceit that took place centuries after Jesus' disappearance was also evident during Jesus' day in the form of the pharisees and sadducees. This is why Jesus warned about listening to them.
The path towards our relationship with God is a personal one. It is not traveled by joining a sect, a group or a church. Rather, our relationship with God redevelops by learning from and following one of God's representatives, and humbly submitting oneself to God. This is a very personal process. It is not a group activity. It is not a council process. It does not require any voting by deacons, bishops or cardinals. We may be physically situated within a group when we submit to God, however. But the group itself will not deliver us to God. It is a personal loving relationship with God that will deliver us, and this is the central message of Jesus.
Jesus is not talking bread and yeast here. Jesus took the opportunity to draw an analogy using bread and yeast. So what is the analogy?
Jesus is comparing the teachings of these ecclesiastic religious leaders to yeast. Why? Because yeast ferments, and through this fermentation, the bread rises. The yeast spreads throughout the flour during the process of rising, and insidiously saturates the bread as it begins to take shape, becoming part of the bread.
In the same way, the organized ecclesiastical church officials - men who hold their positions due to political advantage and the passing of (today's) mechanized schools and standardized tests - poison the population with mistranslations of scripture and theology based upon former political ambitions of rulers like Constantine and his successors, who highjacked the teachings of Jesus and forced new translations. They also assembled the Bible with their 'approved' books. They covered their tracks by destroying many Gnostic scriptures that clarified the true teachings of Jesus and the position of the representative of God.
Through political ambition to control Europe by controlling Christianity, Constantine organized the Synods of Nicea, which brought together politically-oriented bishops from around Europe. These bishops voted (under political pressure by Constantine) on the 'approved' translations and versions of scripture, and this was infused into new translations from the Greek versions. This political pressure removed many of Jesus' teachings from the historical record. After the burning of most of the 'unapproved' scriptures and the persecution of many of the teachers who followed Jesus and his disciples' teachings implicitly, what is left of Jesus' teachings is but a shadow of their true glory. What is left has been misinterpreted and hidden within sermons that focus, ironically, on many of the areas that Jesus implicitly taught were not as important as serving and pleasing God: Such as family matters and church functions. This yeast analogy perfectly describes what has transpired over the centuries as Jesus' teachings have been insulted and offended by political agendas.
Still, because God is in ultimate control, there enough of Jesus' teachings to provide clarity and evidence for his true position as the loving servant and representative of God. We also see that God made sure that some of the original Gnostic texts survived, as they were found about 60 years ago in an abandoned cave in the middle east.
This same political positioning and deceit that took place centuries after Jesus' disappearance was also evident during Jesus' day in the form of the pharisees and sadducees. This is why Jesus warned about listening to them.
The path towards our relationship with God is a personal one. It is not traveled by joining a sect, a group or a church. Rather, our relationship with God redevelops by learning from and following one of God's representatives, and humbly submitting oneself to God. This is a very personal process. It is not a group activity. It is not a council process. It does not require any voting by deacons, bishops or cardinals. We may be physically situated within a group when we submit to God, however. But the group itself will not deliver us to God. It is a personal loving relationship with God that will deliver us, and this is the central message of Jesus.
“When evening comes, you say, 'It will be fair weather, for the sky is red,' and in the morning, 'Today it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast.' You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a miraculous sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah.” (Matt. 16:3-4)
Here Jesus is responding to the Pharisees and Sadducees who came to him and 'tested him by asking him to show them a sign from heaven.' (Matt. 16:1)
Jesus' statement here illustrates the simplicity of his message. Firstly, he mentions the practicality of 'signs.' He illustrates how one can simply read the signs about the future weather just by looking at the sky. This is a practical matter, and it is nondifferent from the rest of life. We can easily look at the various signs of both nature and society to understand what the future bears. It is not rocket science.
Jesus says that instead of seeing logical and practical signs about the current society, those who are “wicked and adulterous” are looking for some kind of miraculous sign from God's representative. This is because they are not sincerely looking for God, and not seeing the practical nature of things. They also are not examining history. If we simply look at the history of all societies that became fat and prideful, we see they all fell, either by the hand of their enemy or from some natural disaster. We can attribute this to God's design because we know that God infused learning experiences into the cause-and-effect scenarios of the physical world. He is perpetually teaching us from an individual position and from a larger societal position, how we need to change in order to be closer to Him.
These points are clarified by Jesus' reference to “the sign of Jonah.” What is “the sign of Jonah?” In the Book of Jonah, we can read the beautiful story of Jonah. Jonah, a devoted servant of God, was requested by God to go to the great city of Nineveh to give them a message, because the people of the city had abandoned their faith in God and were living in ways that were displeasing to God. God asked Jonah to go to the city and preach to them to abandon their ways.
However, Jonah tried to escape the request of God by traveling by boat to Tarshish. As he was on the boat a great storm came up, and the other sailors were forced to put Jonah overboard to avoid the boat capsizing, and as soon as they did, the storm calmed. Then Jonah found himself swallowed by a large fish (presumably a whale) and for three days, Jonah lived inside the whale until he was deposited onto the beach. During those three days, Jonah came to terms with God and commited to God a great prayer, often referred to as Jonah's prayer:
“In my distress I called to the Lord, and he answered me. From the depths of the grave I called for help, and You listened to my cry. You hurled me into the deep, and the very heart of the seas, and the currents swirled about me; all Your waves and breakers swept over me. I said, 'I have been banished from Your sight; yet I will look again toward Your holy temple.' The engulfing waters threatened me, the deep surrounded me; seaweed was wrapped around my head. To the roots of the moutains I sank down; the earth beneath barred me in forever. But You brought my life up from the pit, O Lord my God. When my life was ebbing away, I remembered You, Lord, and my prayer rose to You, to your holy temple. Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs. But I, with a song of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to You. What I have vowed I will make good. Salvation comes from the Lord.” (Jonah 2:1-9)
This prayer goes to the heart of Jesus' message. Here Jonah submitted to God as he found himself in danger, and was given mercy and rescued by God. Once rescued, Jonah went on to follow God's instruction and preach to the city of Nineveh. He told them that they had forty days to make changes or the city would be destroyed. The people of the city responded, and the Book of Jonah closes with God clarifying to Jonah His compassion for the city's 120,000 people.
This “sign of Jonah” illustrates Jesus' role as well. Jesus is being sent by God to save the people of Israel. He was sent with a message. And what is that message? The same message that Jonah delivered, and the same message our current "wicked" generation needs to hear: That we need to return to our Best Friend and Savior, God. We need to worship Him and learn to love Him. What makes us a “wicked” society is simply that we have turned our back on Him. We have decided that our personal pleasures are more important than our relationship with God. So we are running away from God, trying to ignore Him. This will only bring calamity upon us.
Why should we return to God? Is it that God is simply an angry ruler that wants to force Himself upon us? No. If He wanted to force Himself, He could surely make each of us bow down and serve Him. No, he wants our love and worship to be given freely on a voluntary basis. He wants us to decide we want to serve Him.
So how can the threat of destruction help us? Remember that we are in temporary bodies. The body might be faced with calamity but the self - the spirit - is transcendental to the body. The self is eternal. What happens to our bodies is simply like a dream. We might dream we die in a fall but then we wake up. We look back at the dream and realize that it was just a lesson. A teaching moment for us to ponder the meaning of. The same goes with the physical events that happen to our temporary physical bodies. As we become deluded by the temporary pleasures of the physical world, thinking we are these temporary bodies, God has designed lesson plans in an attempt to wake us up. If God did not intercede and provide some calamities, we could be deluded into thinking that this place was our permanent home and we could be happy here — without God.
This situation, however, would only make us unhappy, because we need our relationship with God. Without it, we are empty and unfulfilled. So God sends us messages through the events of the physical world. He is trying to remind us of His existence, so that we might make a voluntary decision to return to Him. Note that even through calamity — as we've all seen in current times — we still have the choice. Many people, despite earthquakes, famines, wars and so on, will still refuse to turn to God for help. Many will even become angry and bitter towards Him, blaming Him for their calamity. So we still have a choice. He gives us the perpetual choice to love Him or not because love must be voluntary. It cannot be forced.
Jesus' statement here illustrates the simplicity of his message. Firstly, he mentions the practicality of 'signs.' He illustrates how one can simply read the signs about the future weather just by looking at the sky. This is a practical matter, and it is nondifferent from the rest of life. We can easily look at the various signs of both nature and society to understand what the future bears. It is not rocket science.
Jesus says that instead of seeing logical and practical signs about the current society, those who are “wicked and adulterous” are looking for some kind of miraculous sign from God's representative. This is because they are not sincerely looking for God, and not seeing the practical nature of things. They also are not examining history. If we simply look at the history of all societies that became fat and prideful, we see they all fell, either by the hand of their enemy or from some natural disaster. We can attribute this to God's design because we know that God infused learning experiences into the cause-and-effect scenarios of the physical world. He is perpetually teaching us from an individual position and from a larger societal position, how we need to change in order to be closer to Him.
These points are clarified by Jesus' reference to “the sign of Jonah.” What is “the sign of Jonah?” In the Book of Jonah, we can read the beautiful story of Jonah. Jonah, a devoted servant of God, was requested by God to go to the great city of Nineveh to give them a message, because the people of the city had abandoned their faith in God and were living in ways that were displeasing to God. God asked Jonah to go to the city and preach to them to abandon their ways.
However, Jonah tried to escape the request of God by traveling by boat to Tarshish. As he was on the boat a great storm came up, and the other sailors were forced to put Jonah overboard to avoid the boat capsizing, and as soon as they did, the storm calmed. Then Jonah found himself swallowed by a large fish (presumably a whale) and for three days, Jonah lived inside the whale until he was deposited onto the beach. During those three days, Jonah came to terms with God and commited to God a great prayer, often referred to as Jonah's prayer:
“In my distress I called to the Lord, and he answered me. From the depths of the grave I called for help, and You listened to my cry. You hurled me into the deep, and the very heart of the seas, and the currents swirled about me; all Your waves and breakers swept over me. I said, 'I have been banished from Your sight; yet I will look again toward Your holy temple.' The engulfing waters threatened me, the deep surrounded me; seaweed was wrapped around my head. To the roots of the moutains I sank down; the earth beneath barred me in forever. But You brought my life up from the pit, O Lord my God. When my life was ebbing away, I remembered You, Lord, and my prayer rose to You, to your holy temple. Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs. But I, with a song of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to You. What I have vowed I will make good. Salvation comes from the Lord.” (Jonah 2:1-9)
This prayer goes to the heart of Jesus' message. Here Jonah submitted to God as he found himself in danger, and was given mercy and rescued by God. Once rescued, Jonah went on to follow God's instruction and preach to the city of Nineveh. He told them that they had forty days to make changes or the city would be destroyed. The people of the city responded, and the Book of Jonah closes with God clarifying to Jonah His compassion for the city's 120,000 people.
This “sign of Jonah” illustrates Jesus' role as well. Jesus is being sent by God to save the people of Israel. He was sent with a message. And what is that message? The same message that Jonah delivered, and the same message our current "wicked" generation needs to hear: That we need to return to our Best Friend and Savior, God. We need to worship Him and learn to love Him. What makes us a “wicked” society is simply that we have turned our back on Him. We have decided that our personal pleasures are more important than our relationship with God. So we are running away from God, trying to ignore Him. This will only bring calamity upon us.
Why should we return to God? Is it that God is simply an angry ruler that wants to force Himself upon us? No. If He wanted to force Himself, He could surely make each of us bow down and serve Him. No, he wants our love and worship to be given freely on a voluntary basis. He wants us to decide we want to serve Him.
So how can the threat of destruction help us? Remember that we are in temporary bodies. The body might be faced with calamity but the self - the spirit - is transcendental to the body. The self is eternal. What happens to our bodies is simply like a dream. We might dream we die in a fall but then we wake up. We look back at the dream and realize that it was just a lesson. A teaching moment for us to ponder the meaning of. The same goes with the physical events that happen to our temporary physical bodies. As we become deluded by the temporary pleasures of the physical world, thinking we are these temporary bodies, God has designed lesson plans in an attempt to wake us up. If God did not intercede and provide some calamities, we could be deluded into thinking that this place was our permanent home and we could be happy here — without God.
This situation, however, would only make us unhappy, because we need our relationship with God. Without it, we are empty and unfulfilled. So God sends us messages through the events of the physical world. He is trying to remind us of His existence, so that we might make a voluntary decision to return to Him. Note that even through calamity — as we've all seen in current times — we still have the choice. Many people, despite earthquakes, famines, wars and so on, will still refuse to turn to God for help. Many will even become angry and bitter towards Him, blaming Him for their calamity. So we still have a choice. He gives us the perpetual choice to love Him or not because love must be voluntary. It cannot be forced.
"Do you see anything? Don't go into the village." (Mark 8:23-25)
Here Jesus has healed a blind person, who began to see after Jesus touched his eyes. Then Jesus asked that the man not go into the village, as that would attract throngs of people wanting Jesus to heal all their aches and pains.
It wasn’t Jesus’ intention to heal everyone’s aches and pains. Certainly if it was, he would have set up shop in the village and had everyone line up to be healed. But he did not. What was Jesus and God's intention with the healings, then?
Jesus often visited with those who were described as 'the lame, the blind, the crippled, the dumb, and many others.’ Matthew describes that the lame were laid at Jesus’ feet. Then--and this is the key component—Matthew states: And they praised the God of Israel. (Matthew 15:31)
So we can see here Jesus’ purpose in healing. It was not to simply help people from a purely physical level. It was to bring them closer to God. It was to increase their faith in God.
In the statement before this one Jesus does state that he has compassion for the people and he did not want them to go home hungry, as they had been following him for three days. So what were they doing for those three days? Were they all standing around just getting healed?
Certainly not. From Matthew's statement we can understand that along with hearing Jesus' teachings, they were singing and praising God's Holy Names.
Notice Matthew does not say “And they praised Jesus of Bethlehem?” No, it is clear that Jesus is giving credit to God, and teaching about God during these three days; and the people were coming away praising God.
This is the purpose of the representative of God. Whether or not they heal people’s bodies or perform miracles, their overriding purpose is to influence others to praise God. To encourage others to remember God, say His Names, sing to Him, and pray to Him. These activities bring us closer to God, and that is God’s intent in sending His representative: To bring us closer to Him, because God wants us back.
It wasn’t Jesus’ intention to heal everyone’s aches and pains. Certainly if it was, he would have set up shop in the village and had everyone line up to be healed. But he did not. What was Jesus and God's intention with the healings, then?
Jesus often visited with those who were described as 'the lame, the blind, the crippled, the dumb, and many others.’ Matthew describes that the lame were laid at Jesus’ feet. Then--and this is the key component—Matthew states: And they praised the God of Israel. (Matthew 15:31)
So we can see here Jesus’ purpose in healing. It was not to simply help people from a purely physical level. It was to bring them closer to God. It was to increase their faith in God.
In the statement before this one Jesus does state that he has compassion for the people and he did not want them to go home hungry, as they had been following him for three days. So what were they doing for those three days? Were they all standing around just getting healed?
Certainly not. From Matthew's statement we can understand that along with hearing Jesus' teachings, they were singing and praising God's Holy Names.
Notice Matthew does not say “And they praised Jesus of Bethlehem?” No, it is clear that Jesus is giving credit to God, and teaching about God during these three days; and the people were coming away praising God.
This is the purpose of the representative of God. Whether or not they heal people’s bodies or perform miracles, their overriding purpose is to influence others to praise God. To encourage others to remember God, say His Names, sing to Him, and pray to Him. These activities bring us closer to God, and that is God’s intent in sending His representative: To bring us closer to Him, because God wants us back.
“I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away hungry.” (Matt. 15:32) “How many loaves do you have?” (Matt 15:34)
At this time, Jesus had been traveling along the Galilee Sea shore, and he went into the hills and large crowds of people followed him. Jesus illustrates with these words, his love and compassion for those who were traveling with him. This is the characteristic of the representative of God. The representative of God has a loving relationship with God. In any true loving relationship, each party cares about the other, and cares about what the other cares about. This is the nature of love. Because God cares about each of us, naturally, the lover of God also cares about each of us.
What is notable about this event is that the seven loaves that were counted turned into more pieces of bread than seven loaves could possibly make, but only after Jesus offered them to God. The translation for this in the text is:
When he had taken the seven loaves and given thanks, he broke them and gave them to his disciples to set before the people. (Mark 8:6)
So what is given thanks? Notice that the given thanks was done prior to giving the bread to the disciples.
As we investigate the Old Testament, we find that God requests that we offer to Him our foods before we eat them:
"Tell the Israelites to bring Me an offering. You are to receive the offering for Me from each man whose heart prompts him to give.” (Exodus 25:1-3)
“When someone brings a grain offering to the LORD, his offering is to be of fine flour.” (Leviticus 2:1-3)
In fact, the giving of an offering to God was considered extremely important to God and His early prophets. We find them building great altars for God, and people would bring their grains, fruits, and other food offerings to God's altar for an offering.
In Jesus’ case, he understood that God can also be offered food before being eaten through the altar of the heart. A person can make an offering to God from any location, with a simple prayer beseeching Him to please accept this offering by the mercy of God’s representative.
For some reason, this process of offering to God has been lost in the translation of the New Testament, and seemingly replaced by “giving thanks.” How did this come about? We know it simply does not make sense that Jesus, who gave great respect and followed the teachings of the great prophets, would simply ignore this great tradition of offering to God before eating, and make up his own ritual of 'giving thanks'?
Certainly not.
This term has been given by those who simply did not want to understand what Jesus was actually doing. It would be quite simple to understand what Jesus was doing, if one was interested in pleasing God. Because those who chose and translated the books of the New Testament were doing so for political reasons (or were instructed by politically-driven persons), Jesus' offerings were lost in translation. We can see this in the grotesque process of the "eucharist" that is performed in many ecclesiastical churches today. During this process, they supposedly consume the "body and blood" of Christ in the form of a little cracker and some wine or grape juice. What is the purpose of this ritual? It is a grotesque selfish process where people imagine that they are being cleansed by eating the body of Christ. This is a process that abuses the purpose and teachings of Jesus. Remember that Jesus said:
“Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." (Matthew 7:20-22)
What should be happening in a church or temple - according to the will of God - is that we should be giving, not taking. We should be offering to God, not consuming from God in the form of "eating" God's representative. We should be offering our food, and singing praise to God. This is the type of process that God clearly instructed so many of His loving servants to do over thousands of years.
While it is certainly nice to thank God for our food, this does not capture the purpose of offering to God.
What God wants is our love. He wants us to make an offering to Him, just as a person might offer flowers or food to their beloved.
When God instructed the priests to “receive the offering for Me from each man whose heart prompts him to give,” He was communicating that the offering should be from the heart and should come from free will. No one can force us to love God. Real love requires freedom. God wants us to freely re-develop our natural love for Him. He does not want to force us to love Him. That would not be love.
What is notable about this event is that the seven loaves that were counted turned into more pieces of bread than seven loaves could possibly make, but only after Jesus offered them to God. The translation for this in the text is:
When he had taken the seven loaves and given thanks, he broke them and gave them to his disciples to set before the people. (Mark 8:6)
So what is given thanks? Notice that the given thanks was done prior to giving the bread to the disciples.
As we investigate the Old Testament, we find that God requests that we offer to Him our foods before we eat them:
"Tell the Israelites to bring Me an offering. You are to receive the offering for Me from each man whose heart prompts him to give.” (Exodus 25:1-3)
“When someone brings a grain offering to the LORD, his offering is to be of fine flour.” (Leviticus 2:1-3)
In fact, the giving of an offering to God was considered extremely important to God and His early prophets. We find them building great altars for God, and people would bring their grains, fruits, and other food offerings to God's altar for an offering.
In Jesus’ case, he understood that God can also be offered food before being eaten through the altar of the heart. A person can make an offering to God from any location, with a simple prayer beseeching Him to please accept this offering by the mercy of God’s representative.
For some reason, this process of offering to God has been lost in the translation of the New Testament, and seemingly replaced by “giving thanks.” How did this come about? We know it simply does not make sense that Jesus, who gave great respect and followed the teachings of the great prophets, would simply ignore this great tradition of offering to God before eating, and make up his own ritual of 'giving thanks'?
Certainly not.
This term has been given by those who simply did not want to understand what Jesus was actually doing. It would be quite simple to understand what Jesus was doing, if one was interested in pleasing God. Because those who chose and translated the books of the New Testament were doing so for political reasons (or were instructed by politically-driven persons), Jesus' offerings were lost in translation. We can see this in the grotesque process of the "eucharist" that is performed in many ecclesiastical churches today. During this process, they supposedly consume the "body and blood" of Christ in the form of a little cracker and some wine or grape juice. What is the purpose of this ritual? It is a grotesque selfish process where people imagine that they are being cleansed by eating the body of Christ. This is a process that abuses the purpose and teachings of Jesus. Remember that Jesus said:
“Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." (Matthew 7:20-22)
What should be happening in a church or temple - according to the will of God - is that we should be giving, not taking. We should be offering to God, not consuming from God in the form of "eating" God's representative. We should be offering our food, and singing praise to God. This is the type of process that God clearly instructed so many of His loving servants to do over thousands of years.
While it is certainly nice to thank God for our food, this does not capture the purpose of offering to God.
What God wants is our love. He wants us to make an offering to Him, just as a person might offer flowers or food to their beloved.
When God instructed the priests to “receive the offering for Me from each man whose heart prompts him to give,” He was communicating that the offering should be from the heart and should come from free will. No one can force us to love God. Real love requires freedom. God wants us to freely re-develop our natural love for Him. He does not want to force us to love Him. That would not be love.
“Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” (Matt. 15:27)
This follows the Canaanite woman saying, “Yes, Lord, but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” (Matt. 15:26) The woman had no pride, but instead had great sincerity of heart, and a humble trust in Jesus. She pleaded with Jesus to save her daughter. Jesus was pleased with her faith in God. As is stated by Matthew following Jesus’ statement, the daughter was healed within the hour.
This illustrates again that Jesus had no concern over the physical body of those he taught. He had no concern over nationality, race or gender (remember, she was a Canaanite woman, one that even Jesus' disciples were trying to send away). He had come to save anyone and everyone ready and willing to learn the Truth that Jesus had brought from God. As he had stated, the healing Jesus displayed was coming from God, as a tool to beckon people back home into God's embrace - back into their original relationship with God. Jesus' intent was to give people the wisdom coming from God.
Here Jesus is talking about faith. The point of “faith” is trusting in not only God's existence. But trusting that God cares about us and loves each of us unconditionally.
Those with a lack of faith define "faith" as a confidence in God's existence. This is actually a shallow form of faith.
Why do we not see God?
Perhaps the question should be: Do we want to see God?
The answer to the second question is the answer to the first question.
We do not see God because we do not want to see God. We have come here to the physical universe and taken on physical bodies (made of skin) so that we wouldn’t have to see God:
The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. (Genesis 3:21)
We came here because, like Adam, we decided to eat of the forbidden fruit. And what is the forbidden fruit? This is being envious of God. This is the desire to enjoy like God instead of loving and serving God, for which we were created.
However, like any loving friend, God does not want to impose Himself upon us. He gave us the freedom to love Him or not because love requires freedom. If we don't want to maintain our loving relationship with God, He sends us away to the physical world and stays hidden from our view.
The lack of perception of God indeed renders a test of faith to the physical being. Do we want to trust that He exists despite us not seeing Him with the physical eyes?
Better yet: Do we want to trust those who have sacrificed their lives to please Him?
This is the ultimate meaning of Jesus' sacrifice by the way. It was not some kind of a magical process of saving everyone's from their sins. We still are responsible for our own sins (unless we forgiven of them through our relationship with God). But what Jesus did was commit his entire life to God so that we could understand that not only does God exist, but that a relationship with God is worth sacrificing for.
Consider a person who goes to war and dies for his country. Why would they do that? They are making that sacrifice because they feel that the country is important enough to die for. In other words, their sacrifice illustrates the importance of their country.
While God is not like an impersonal country (He is a Person), the analogy illustrates why a devoted loving servant such Jesus would be ready to make the ultimate sacrifice on behalf of God. It is because, by understanding such a sacrifice, we might begin to have faith not only in God's existence, but in the fact that our relationship with God is so important that it trivializes the importance of the temporary physical body.
Today, however, ecclesiastical teachers from the modern organized Christian religions teach that we simply need to come to church (and give them money) and proclaim that we are saved by Jesus' dying on the cross. This is not at all the message! This is why Jesus said:
“Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." (Matthew 7:20-22)
It is not about our own salvation. It is about re-developing our relationship with God and then doing God's will out of love. This loving service to God is precisely what Jesus taught by his example and by his words. Should we follow Jesus' example and teachings, then we will be 'saved.'
So the true test of faith is whether we trust Jesus' teachings (and not the ecclesiastical Christian teachers of the modern Christian sects). Do we trust Jesus' words, as did this Canaanite woman, despite the many criticisms of the Jewish ecclesiastical teachers (pharisees and sadducees) of that time?
This illustrates again that Jesus had no concern over the physical body of those he taught. He had no concern over nationality, race or gender (remember, she was a Canaanite woman, one that even Jesus' disciples were trying to send away). He had come to save anyone and everyone ready and willing to learn the Truth that Jesus had brought from God. As he had stated, the healing Jesus displayed was coming from God, as a tool to beckon people back home into God's embrace - back into their original relationship with God. Jesus' intent was to give people the wisdom coming from God.
Here Jesus is talking about faith. The point of “faith” is trusting in not only God's existence. But trusting that God cares about us and loves each of us unconditionally.
Those with a lack of faith define "faith" as a confidence in God's existence. This is actually a shallow form of faith.
Why do we not see God?
Perhaps the question should be: Do we want to see God?
The answer to the second question is the answer to the first question.
We do not see God because we do not want to see God. We have come here to the physical universe and taken on physical bodies (made of skin) so that we wouldn’t have to see God:
The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. (Genesis 3:21)
We came here because, like Adam, we decided to eat of the forbidden fruit. And what is the forbidden fruit? This is being envious of God. This is the desire to enjoy like God instead of loving and serving God, for which we were created.
However, like any loving friend, God does not want to impose Himself upon us. He gave us the freedom to love Him or not because love requires freedom. If we don't want to maintain our loving relationship with God, He sends us away to the physical world and stays hidden from our view.
The lack of perception of God indeed renders a test of faith to the physical being. Do we want to trust that He exists despite us not seeing Him with the physical eyes?
Better yet: Do we want to trust those who have sacrificed their lives to please Him?
This is the ultimate meaning of Jesus' sacrifice by the way. It was not some kind of a magical process of saving everyone's from their sins. We still are responsible for our own sins (unless we forgiven of them through our relationship with God). But what Jesus did was commit his entire life to God so that we could understand that not only does God exist, but that a relationship with God is worth sacrificing for.
Consider a person who goes to war and dies for his country. Why would they do that? They are making that sacrifice because they feel that the country is important enough to die for. In other words, their sacrifice illustrates the importance of their country.
While God is not like an impersonal country (He is a Person), the analogy illustrates why a devoted loving servant such Jesus would be ready to make the ultimate sacrifice on behalf of God. It is because, by understanding such a sacrifice, we might begin to have faith not only in God's existence, but in the fact that our relationship with God is so important that it trivializes the importance of the temporary physical body.
Today, however, ecclesiastical teachers from the modern organized Christian religions teach that we simply need to come to church (and give them money) and proclaim that we are saved by Jesus' dying on the cross. This is not at all the message! This is why Jesus said:
“Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." (Matthew 7:20-22)
It is not about our own salvation. It is about re-developing our relationship with God and then doing God's will out of love. This loving service to God is precisely what Jesus taught by his example and by his words. Should we follow Jesus' example and teachings, then we will be 'saved.'
So the true test of faith is whether we trust Jesus' teachings (and not the ecclesiastical Christian teachers of the modern Christian sects). Do we trust Jesus' words, as did this Canaanite woman, despite the many criticisms of the Jewish ecclesiastical teachers (pharisees and sadducees) of that time?
“It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.” (Matt. 15:26)
Here Jesus makes a statement to both his disciples and the Canaanite woman who had came to Jesus and said, "Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession," (Matt. 15:22), to which Jesus’ disciples urged Jesus to “send her away” (Matt. 15:23), and Jesus remarked sarcastically that, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” (Matt. 15:24). Then the woman knelt before him, and said “Lord, help me!” (Matt. 15:25).
So Jesus is responding to his disciples’ remarks about sending the woman away. Why is he talking about taking children’s bread and tossing it to the dogs then? This is an analogy where the bread is his teachings and the children are those who are to receive his message, while the dogs are theoretically those who should not receive the message (during those times, people did not feed dogs their dinners as they do today.)
This is all because Jesus is condemning the lack of compassion exhibited by his disciples. Jesus is attempting to give them a lesson about his mission and his objectives.
To Jesus’ statement above about the dogs, the humble woman says, "Yes, Lord, but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." (Matt 15:27). In other words, she submits herself in full humility and faith to the representative of God, not caring to feel offended by being compared to a dog (which Jesus was only doing to illustrate how his disciples were treating the woman).
To this we will find that Jesus praises her humility and faith, and heals her daughter without any hesitation (Matt. 15:28).
As the loving servant and representative of God, Jesus is compassionate. He cares about everyone - not just the Jews. The position or family of ones body is not his concern. It is the position of ones heart that counts. Do they have faith in God? Are they prepared to listen to the teachings of God’s representative and follow them? Are they prepared to submit themselves to God, even gradually, through their lives, and develop their relationship with God? These are the issues the true representative of God is focused upon, rather than the issues of the temporary physical body.
So Jesus is responding to his disciples’ remarks about sending the woman away. Why is he talking about taking children’s bread and tossing it to the dogs then? This is an analogy where the bread is his teachings and the children are those who are to receive his message, while the dogs are theoretically those who should not receive the message (during those times, people did not feed dogs their dinners as they do today.)
This is all because Jesus is condemning the lack of compassion exhibited by his disciples. Jesus is attempting to give them a lesson about his mission and his objectives.
To Jesus’ statement above about the dogs, the humble woman says, "Yes, Lord, but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." (Matt 15:27). In other words, she submits herself in full humility and faith to the representative of God, not caring to feel offended by being compared to a dog (which Jesus was only doing to illustrate how his disciples were treating the woman).
To this we will find that Jesus praises her humility and faith, and heals her daughter without any hesitation (Matt. 15:28).
As the loving servant and representative of God, Jesus is compassionate. He cares about everyone - not just the Jews. The position or family of ones body is not his concern. It is the position of ones heart that counts. Do they have faith in God? Are they prepared to listen to the teachings of God’s representative and follow them? Are they prepared to submit themselves to God, even gradually, through their lives, and develop their relationship with God? These are the issues the true representative of God is focused upon, rather than the issues of the temporary physical body.
“I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” (Matt. 15:24)
Here Jesus is being sarcastic in answering to his disciples who, following the approach of a Canaanite woman who cried out, “Lord, son of David have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession,” said: “Send her away for she keeps crying out after us.”
As we will see with the rest of this exchange with his disciples, Jesus is not teaching that he will only help Israelies. Jesus sees the spiritual being, not the temporary physical body as important.
We notice here that Jesus is being referred to by the woman as the “son of David.” Let’s consider this carefully. Jesus appeared probably a thousand years or more after the time of David. So how could he be referred to as David’s son?
We see two genealogies given in the books of the New Testament, but these do not agree! First we find Matthew 1:1-17 tracing Jesus back to Abraham, and in Luke 3:23-28 we see a totally different genealogy tracing back to Adam. Both include David, but the genealogy's are drastically different in most other respects. In Matthew, for example, Daivd is the father of Solomon. In Luke, David is the father of Nathan who is the son of Mattatha, and there is no mention of Solomon. Why the discrepancy? And on top of this, of course, is the conflict of the virgin birth: That Jesus was supposed to have not had a father, yet in both Luke and Matthew, the genealogy connects Jesus to David through Joseph, as Jesus’ father. And there is no genealogy connected to Mary.
The only reasonable explanation, as is consistent with other usages of the word “son” in these texts, is that in many cases the word "pias" should be translated to “loving servant” or "disciple." Consider the discourse between Samuel and his spiritual teacher, Eli:
The boy Samuel ministered before the LORD under Eli. In those days the word of the LORD was rare; there were not many visions.
One night Eli, whose eyes were becoming so weak that he could barely see, was lying down in his usual place. The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the LORD, where the ark of God was. Then the LORD called Samuel.
Samuel answered, "Here I am." And he ran to Eli and said, "Here I am; you called me."
But Eli said, "I did not call; go back and lie down." So he went and lay down.
Again the LORD called, "Samuel!" And Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, "Here I am; you called me."
"My son," Eli said, "I did not call; go back and lie down."
(1 Samuel 3:1-6)
In some cases, ones spiritual teacher may also be ones father, however. So in these cases, we are talking about a son who is dedicated to the teachings of his father and the relationship between his father and God. In other cases, the "son" is not related, but sits at the teacher's feet to learn the Truth. In other cases, one may have multiple spiritual teachers. This would be the only logical explanation of why there are multiple "genealogies." It is also logical that both of these "genealogies" may be hybrids - in some cases describing family fathers and sons, and in others, spiritual teachers and their disciples. As this "genealogy" was passed down, some took it to mean family genealogy, and some took it to mean spiritual teaching heritage: depending upon the clarity of their understanding of how spiritual wisdom is passed down. In other words, people who are fixed in the body concept of life always want to connect blood relationships to things. They do not see the spiritual connections.
When we consider the relationship between Jesus and his students and disciples - who were Jesus’ servants--and the relationship between spiritual teacher and student, this is a servant relationship. The student learns from the teacher, and becomes the teacher’s servant. Therefore, being the servant of a teacher, who was the servant of their teacher, who in turn was the servant of their teacher, creates a lineage for wisdom to be passed on from teacher to student through the means of hearing and servitude. Again, in some cases, this wisdom is passed down from physical father and son - but this is not necessary.
This great lineage of God's wisdom is illustrated in the Old Testament as it chronologically presents the teacher-student relationships for thousands of years. Again, many were also father-son relationships, but many great teachers of the Old Testament were not father-son relationships. This indeed is also what Jesus was illustrating as he says here with this statement regarding Jesus coming to save the lost sheep of Israel. Anyone who becomes a servant of the Teacher of the Truth can in turn become a Teacher of the Truth, should he or she be empowered by God to do so.
In the books of the Old Testament, a person who has received the Truth from the lineage of teachers, and is currently disseminating this, is referred to as the "anointed one." While many ecclesiastical Christian teachers like to say that there was only one "anointed one" - Jesus - this is not supported by scripture. Consider these statements:
The assembly must protect the one accused of murder from the avenger of blood and send him back to the city of refuge to which he fled. He must stay there until the death of the high priest, who was anointed with the holy oil. (Numbers 35:24-26)
I will raise up for myself a faithful priest, who will do according to what is in my heart and mind. I will firmly establish his house, and he will minister before my anointed one always. (1 Samuel 2:34-36)
"Do not touch my anointed ones; do my prophets no harm." (1 Chronicles 16:21-23)
O LORD God, do not reject your anointed one. Remember the great love promised to David your servant." (2 Chronicles 6:41-42)
The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the LORD and against his anointed one. (Psalm 2:1-3)
The LORD is the strength of his people, a fortress of salvation for his anointed one. (Psalm 28:7-9)
Look upon our shield, O God; look with favor on your anointed one. (Psalm 84:8-10)
But you have rejected, you have spurned, you have been very angry with your anointed one. (Psalm 89:37-39)
The taunts with which your enemies have mocked, O LORD, with which they have mocked every step of your anointed one. (Psalm 89:50-52)
"Do not touch my anointed ones; do my prophets no harm." (Psalm 105:14-16)
For the sake of David your servant, do not reject your anointed one. (Psalm 132:9-11)
"Here I will make a horn grow for David and set up a lamp for my anointed one. (Psalm 132:16-18)
"Anoint them just as you anointed their father, so they may serve me as priests. Their anointing will be to a priesthood that will continue for all generations to come." (Exodus 40:14-16)
" 'If the anointed priest sins, bringing guilt on the people, he must bring to the LORD a young bull without defect as a sin offering for the sin he has committed. (Leviticus 4:2-4)
Then the anointed priest shall take some of the bull's blood and carry it into the Tent of Meeting. (Leviticus 4:4-6)
"This is the offering Aaron and his sons are to bring to the LORD on the day he is anointed: a tenth of an ephah of fine flour as a regular grain offering, half of it in the morning and half in the evening. (Leviticus 6:19-21)
The son who is to succeed him as anointed priest shall prepare it. It is the LORD's regular share and is to be burned completely. (Leviticus 6:21-23)
He poured some of the anointing oil on Aaron's head and anointed him to consecrate him. (Leviticus 8:11-13)
The priest who is anointed and ordained to succeed his father as high priest is to make atonement. He is to put on the sacred linen garments. (Leviticus 16:31-33)
Those were the names of Aaron's sons, the anointed priests, who were ordained to serve as priests. (Numbers 3:2-4)
I will raise up for myself a faithful priest, who will do according to what is in my heart and mind. I will firmly establish his house, and he will minister before my anointed one always. (1 Samuel 2:34-36)
Then Samuel took a flask of oil and poured it on Saul's head and kissed him, saying, "Has not the LORD anointed you leader over his inheritance? (1 Samuel 10:1-3)
Samuel said to them, "The LORD is witness against you, and also his anointed is witness this day, that you have not found anything in my hand." (1 Samuel 12:4-6)
When they arrived, Samuel saw Eliab and thought, "Surely the LORD's anointed stands here before the LORD." (1 Samuel 16:5-7)
So Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers, and from that day on the Spirit of the LORD came upon David in power. Samuel then went to Ramah. (1 Samuel 16:12-14)
He said to his men, "The LORD forbid that I should do such a thing to my master, the LORD's anointed, or lift my hand against him; for he is the anointed of the LORD." (1 Samuel 24:5-7)
This day you have seen with your own eyes how the LORD delivered you into my hands in the cave. Some urged me to kill you, but I spared you; I said, 'I will not lift my hand against my master, because he is the LORD's anointed.' (1 Samuel 24:9-11)
We can see from these statements that to be "anointed" was to be initiated into the priesthood by ones teacher. And what is the "priesthood"? The "priesthood" is the empowerment of being one of God's representatives: Someone who passes God's message to others. Baptism also applied to this rite of initiation. Over the centuries of ecclesiastical organized Christian religion, however, baptism has come to be known as a rite of joining a particular sect or church.
In the scriptural sense, however, being "anointed" is a rite symbolizing ones empowerment by God and acknowledgement by one of God's representatives. In clear terms, God's representatives teach others the message of God, and one who receives God's message and acts upon it, may be empowered by God. This empowerment is often symbolized through a ritual initiation process, but the ritual initiation is not required: So long as the student has established a devotional relationship with the teacher. This is why Jesus did not just tell his disciples to go out and teach to others: He also commanded anyone he taught to spread the 'good news.'
The ability to spread the 'good news,' however, means that a person must have heard it and applied it to their own lives first. This is the only way they can truly spread the news. It must come from a place of relationship with God and His representative.
Note also Jesus’ mercy upon this woman. After the disciples urged him to “Send her away for she keeps crying out after us,” Jesus rebuked them, emphasizing his mission. He came to teach and purify those people who were in the grips of the physical world - those whose lives were not focused upon God: Those who needed to return home to their relationship with God.
As we will see with the rest of this exchange with his disciples, Jesus is not teaching that he will only help Israelies. Jesus sees the spiritual being, not the temporary physical body as important.
We notice here that Jesus is being referred to by the woman as the “son of David.” Let’s consider this carefully. Jesus appeared probably a thousand years or more after the time of David. So how could he be referred to as David’s son?
We see two genealogies given in the books of the New Testament, but these do not agree! First we find Matthew 1:1-17 tracing Jesus back to Abraham, and in Luke 3:23-28 we see a totally different genealogy tracing back to Adam. Both include David, but the genealogy's are drastically different in most other respects. In Matthew, for example, Daivd is the father of Solomon. In Luke, David is the father of Nathan who is the son of Mattatha, and there is no mention of Solomon. Why the discrepancy? And on top of this, of course, is the conflict of the virgin birth: That Jesus was supposed to have not had a father, yet in both Luke and Matthew, the genealogy connects Jesus to David through Joseph, as Jesus’ father. And there is no genealogy connected to Mary.
The only reasonable explanation, as is consistent with other usages of the word “son” in these texts, is that in many cases the word "pias" should be translated to “loving servant” or "disciple." Consider the discourse between Samuel and his spiritual teacher, Eli:
The boy Samuel ministered before the LORD under Eli. In those days the word of the LORD was rare; there were not many visions.
One night Eli, whose eyes were becoming so weak that he could barely see, was lying down in his usual place. The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the LORD, where the ark of God was. Then the LORD called Samuel.
Samuel answered, "Here I am." And he ran to Eli and said, "Here I am; you called me."
But Eli said, "I did not call; go back and lie down." So he went and lay down.
Again the LORD called, "Samuel!" And Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, "Here I am; you called me."
"My son," Eli said, "I did not call; go back and lie down."
(1 Samuel 3:1-6)
In some cases, ones spiritual teacher may also be ones father, however. So in these cases, we are talking about a son who is dedicated to the teachings of his father and the relationship between his father and God. In other cases, the "son" is not related, but sits at the teacher's feet to learn the Truth. In other cases, one may have multiple spiritual teachers. This would be the only logical explanation of why there are multiple "genealogies." It is also logical that both of these "genealogies" may be hybrids - in some cases describing family fathers and sons, and in others, spiritual teachers and their disciples. As this "genealogy" was passed down, some took it to mean family genealogy, and some took it to mean spiritual teaching heritage: depending upon the clarity of their understanding of how spiritual wisdom is passed down. In other words, people who are fixed in the body concept of life always want to connect blood relationships to things. They do not see the spiritual connections.
When we consider the relationship between Jesus and his students and disciples - who were Jesus’ servants--and the relationship between spiritual teacher and student, this is a servant relationship. The student learns from the teacher, and becomes the teacher’s servant. Therefore, being the servant of a teacher, who was the servant of their teacher, who in turn was the servant of their teacher, creates a lineage for wisdom to be passed on from teacher to student through the means of hearing and servitude. Again, in some cases, this wisdom is passed down from physical father and son - but this is not necessary.
This great lineage of God's wisdom is illustrated in the Old Testament as it chronologically presents the teacher-student relationships for thousands of years. Again, many were also father-son relationships, but many great teachers of the Old Testament were not father-son relationships. This indeed is also what Jesus was illustrating as he says here with this statement regarding Jesus coming to save the lost sheep of Israel. Anyone who becomes a servant of the Teacher of the Truth can in turn become a Teacher of the Truth, should he or she be empowered by God to do so.
In the books of the Old Testament, a person who has received the Truth from the lineage of teachers, and is currently disseminating this, is referred to as the "anointed one." While many ecclesiastical Christian teachers like to say that there was only one "anointed one" - Jesus - this is not supported by scripture. Consider these statements:
The assembly must protect the one accused of murder from the avenger of blood and send him back to the city of refuge to which he fled. He must stay there until the death of the high priest, who was anointed with the holy oil. (Numbers 35:24-26)
I will raise up for myself a faithful priest, who will do according to what is in my heart and mind. I will firmly establish his house, and he will minister before my anointed one always. (1 Samuel 2:34-36)
"Do not touch my anointed ones; do my prophets no harm." (1 Chronicles 16:21-23)
O LORD God, do not reject your anointed one. Remember the great love promised to David your servant." (2 Chronicles 6:41-42)
The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the LORD and against his anointed one. (Psalm 2:1-3)
The LORD is the strength of his people, a fortress of salvation for his anointed one. (Psalm 28:7-9)
Look upon our shield, O God; look with favor on your anointed one. (Psalm 84:8-10)
But you have rejected, you have spurned, you have been very angry with your anointed one. (Psalm 89:37-39)
The taunts with which your enemies have mocked, O LORD, with which they have mocked every step of your anointed one. (Psalm 89:50-52)
"Do not touch my anointed ones; do my prophets no harm." (Psalm 105:14-16)
For the sake of David your servant, do not reject your anointed one. (Psalm 132:9-11)
"Here I will make a horn grow for David and set up a lamp for my anointed one. (Psalm 132:16-18)
"Anoint them just as you anointed their father, so they may serve me as priests. Their anointing will be to a priesthood that will continue for all generations to come." (Exodus 40:14-16)
" 'If the anointed priest sins, bringing guilt on the people, he must bring to the LORD a young bull without defect as a sin offering for the sin he has committed. (Leviticus 4:2-4)
Then the anointed priest shall take some of the bull's blood and carry it into the Tent of Meeting. (Leviticus 4:4-6)
"This is the offering Aaron and his sons are to bring to the LORD on the day he is anointed: a tenth of an ephah of fine flour as a regular grain offering, half of it in the morning and half in the evening. (Leviticus 6:19-21)
The son who is to succeed him as anointed priest shall prepare it. It is the LORD's regular share and is to be burned completely. (Leviticus 6:21-23)
He poured some of the anointing oil on Aaron's head and anointed him to consecrate him. (Leviticus 8:11-13)
The priest who is anointed and ordained to succeed his father as high priest is to make atonement. He is to put on the sacred linen garments. (Leviticus 16:31-33)
Those were the names of Aaron's sons, the anointed priests, who were ordained to serve as priests. (Numbers 3:2-4)
I will raise up for myself a faithful priest, who will do according to what is in my heart and mind. I will firmly establish his house, and he will minister before my anointed one always. (1 Samuel 2:34-36)
Then Samuel took a flask of oil and poured it on Saul's head and kissed him, saying, "Has not the LORD anointed you leader over his inheritance? (1 Samuel 10:1-3)
Samuel said to them, "The LORD is witness against you, and also his anointed is witness this day, that you have not found anything in my hand." (1 Samuel 12:4-6)
When they arrived, Samuel saw Eliab and thought, "Surely the LORD's anointed stands here before the LORD." (1 Samuel 16:5-7)
So Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers, and from that day on the Spirit of the LORD came upon David in power. Samuel then went to Ramah. (1 Samuel 16:12-14)
He said to his men, "The LORD forbid that I should do such a thing to my master, the LORD's anointed, or lift my hand against him; for he is the anointed of the LORD." (1 Samuel 24:5-7)
This day you have seen with your own eyes how the LORD delivered you into my hands in the cave. Some urged me to kill you, but I spared you; I said, 'I will not lift my hand against my master, because he is the LORD's anointed.' (1 Samuel 24:9-11)
We can see from these statements that to be "anointed" was to be initiated into the priesthood by ones teacher. And what is the "priesthood"? The "priesthood" is the empowerment of being one of God's representatives: Someone who passes God's message to others. Baptism also applied to this rite of initiation. Over the centuries of ecclesiastical organized Christian religion, however, baptism has come to be known as a rite of joining a particular sect or church.
In the scriptural sense, however, being "anointed" is a rite symbolizing ones empowerment by God and acknowledgement by one of God's representatives. In clear terms, God's representatives teach others the message of God, and one who receives God's message and acts upon it, may be empowered by God. This empowerment is often symbolized through a ritual initiation process, but the ritual initiation is not required: So long as the student has established a devotional relationship with the teacher. This is why Jesus did not just tell his disciples to go out and teach to others: He also commanded anyone he taught to spread the 'good news.'
The ability to spread the 'good news,' however, means that a person must have heard it and applied it to their own lives first. This is the only way they can truly spread the news. It must come from a place of relationship with God and His representative.
Note also Jesus’ mercy upon this woman. After the disciples urged him to “Send her away for she keeps crying out after us,” Jesus rebuked them, emphasizing his mission. He came to teach and purify those people who were in the grips of the physical world - those whose lives were not focused upon God: Those who needed to return home to their relationship with God.
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