Chapter 37 – Ruin, Ruin, Ruin

Posted on December 27, 2017 by danlwhite

The End Time Church: From the Cathedrals to the Catacombs

By Dan L. White

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB) which is in the public domain.

Chapter 37

Ruin, Ruin, Ruin

How many kings is enough?

How about forty?

During Noah’s flood, the rain fell for forty days and nights. Israel was in the wilderness for forty years. Moses was with Yahweh on Mt. Sinai for forty days and nights, when he neither ate nor drank. After eating an angel food cake — a cake baked by an angel — Elijah ran without food for forty days and nights. And before He was tempted by Satan, Yeshua fasted in the wilderness for forty days and nights.

In all those cases, forty was enough.

So are forty kings enough?

First, there were three kings, Saul, David and Solomon. Because of disobedience, Saul’s family was rejected from the throne. Because of disobedience, Solomon had ten tribes ripped away from his son. The ten tribes’ Kingdom of Israel then had nineteen kings, all bad. The Kingdom of Judah had nineteen kings; seven were consistently obedient, Joash was obedient then disobedient, Manasseh was disobedient, then obedient, and the other ten were just plain bad. The end result of those kings was that both the ten tribes and Judah were kicked out of the Holy Land.

That was a total of forty kings – Saul, Solomon, nineteen in Israel and nineteen in Judah.

Who does that leave out?

David.

David was distinct from all the other kings. He was the one and only king whose line was promised the throne forever.

Therefore, reigning over Israel, there were –
David;
and the other forty kings.

Some of the kings in David’s family who reigned over Judah were very obedient, with occasional problems, such as Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah and Josiah, but the promise of an eternal dynasty had already been made to David. So David was unique among the kings of Israel. None of the forty were like him.

In Samuel’s time, the Israelites demanded a king like all the other nations. Under those kings, they became like all the other nations. Therefore, forty kings reigning over Israel was enough.

Enough of carnal human kings ruling in place of Yahweh God.

Lam 5:14-19
14) The elders have ceased from the gate, The young men from their music.
15) The joy of our heart is ceased; Our dance is turned into mourning.
16) The crown is fallen from our head: Woe to us! for we have sinned.
17) For this our heart is faint; For these things our eyes are dim;
18) For the mountain of Zion, which is desolate: The foxes walk on it.
19) You, Yahweh, remain forever; Your throne is from generation to generation.

The Kingdom of Israel/Samaria fell about 721 BCE. Those ten tribes were deported and never formally reentered the Holy Land. Obviously, then, they never had another kingdom in the Holy Land.

The Kingdom of Judah fell in 586 BCE. Some of that tribe did formally reenter the Holy Land, as recorded by Ezra and Nehemiah. Jerusalem and the temple were rebuilt but the throne of David was not reestablished. Zerubabel was appointed governor of this Jewish nation and he was of the line of David, but Zerubabel was never a king. He was only an official appointed by a Gentile king. The Maccabees/Hasmoneans ruled over Judah for about a century, but they were priests and not of the kingly line of David so they did not reestablish the throne of David. Rome finally overcame them, and the Roman Caesar was king over Judah and the Holy Land when Yeshua was born, and throughout His lifetime.

John 19:15
15) They cried out, “Away with him! Away with him! Crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar!”

When Yeshua was born as King of the Jews, he was born to take over the throne of David. Long before the throne of David was cast down, Isaiah prophesied that the Messiah would be on that throne.

Isa 9:7
7) Of the increase of his government and of peace there shall be no end, on the throne of David, and on his kingdom, to establish it, and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from that time on, even forever. The zeal of Yahweh of Armies will perform this.

Mary was told that her son would be on that throne.

Luke 1:32-33
32) He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father, David,
33) and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. There will be no end to his Kingdom.”

Peter’s first message was about Yeshua being raised to sit on that throne.

Acts 2:29-30
29) “Brothers, I may tell you freely of the patriarch David, that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day.
30) Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, he would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne,

Yeshua was born to sit on the throne of David.

Yet, when He was born, no one had sat on the throne of David for nearly six centuries!

The throne was in ruins, as the apostle James said, quoting the book of Amos.

Acts 15:13-17
13) After they were silent, James answered, “Brothers, listen to me.
14) Simeon has reported how God first visited the nations, to take out of them a people for his name.
15) This agrees with the words of the prophets. As it is written,
16) ‘After these things I will return. I will again build the tabernacle of David, which has fallen. I will again build its ruins. I will set it up,
17) That the rest of men may seek after the Lord; All the Gentiles who are called by my name, Says the Lord, who does all these things.

Notice carefully what James said.

The tabernacle of David – his royal dynasty – has fallen. The throne of David was not occupied.

I will build again its ruins – That ruling dynasty was in ruins, and was not ruling.

I will set it up – the throne of David will be restored. Someone will sit on it.

That the rest of men may seek after the Lord; All the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the Lord – This kingdom, the Kingdom of God will include all nations under Yeshua, reigning on David’s restored throne.

James said that the tabernacle of David was in ruins, and Ezekiel wrote that the throne of David would be ruined, ruined, ruined. And Ezekiel wrote that, just before it happened.

Eze 21:25-27 English Standard Version
(25) And you, O profane wicked one, prince of Israel, whose day has come, the time of your final punishment,
(26) thus says the Lord GOD: Remove the turban and take off the crown. Things shall not remain as they are. Exalt that which is low, and bring low that which is exalted.
(27) A ruin, ruin, ruin I will make it. This also shall not be, until he comes, the one to whom judgment belongs, and I will give it to him.

Because of the wicked kings of Judah, the crown was taken off their heads. Things would not remain as they were. That throne was to be a ruin, ruin, ruin. “A ruin, ruin, ruin I will make it” – said God Himself.

Other translations of verse 27 are:

Ezek 21:27 International Standard Version
27) A ruin! A ruin! I’m bringing about ruin!’ But this also will not happen until he who has authority over it arrives, because I’ll give it to him.”

Ezek 21:26 Tanakh-1917, Jewish Publication Society (different verse numbering)
26) A ruin, a ruin, a ruin, will I make it; this also shall be no more, until he come whose right it is, and I will give it him.

Ezek 21:27 Literal Translation of the Whole Bible
27) Ruin, ruin, ruin! I will appoint it! Also this shall not be until the coming of Him to whom is the right, and I will give it.

The King James Version uses ‘overturn’ instead of ‘ruin,’ meaning that the throne was overthrown by Nebuchadnezzar when he deposed King Zedekiah.

Ezek 21:27 King James Version
27) I will overturn, overturn, overturn, it: and it shall be no more, until he come whose right it is; and I will give it him.

It has been speculated that overturn means moved, that the throne of David would still have carnal men ruling on it, that when it fell in Judah it would be moved three times – “overturned, overturned, overturned.” The Hebrew word ‘avvah’ is used only here, and is defined by Strong’s as ‘overthrow.’ The related root word ‘avah’ is used 17 times and is most often translated in the King James as ‘perverted.’ No English translation translates ‘avvah’ as moved and all common Bible commentaries maintain that the verse means that the throne would be overthrown and would not continue in its current form.

To say that the throne would be moved, moved, moved is the opposite of what the passage actually says, says, says. The last part of the verse says that the throne would be no more, until he comes whose right it is, and God will give that throne to Him.

Obviously that strongly contradicts the position that the throne would be moved, moved, moved. That is then interpreted to say that the throne would be ‘moved no more’ until He comes whose right it is. That interpretation ignores the forty kings and would have some pagan sitting on the throne of David when Yeshua was born to take over that throne.

Rotherham’s Emphasized Bible renders the passage in question this way.

EBR Ezek 21:25-27
25) Thou, therefore, O profane, lawless one, prince of Israel,––Whose day, hath come, in a time of final iniquity:
26) Thus, saith My Lord, Yahweh, Remove the turban, And lift off the crown,––This, not that, The abased, exalt, And, the exalted, abase.
27) An overthrow, overthrow, overthrow, will I make it,––Even this, hath not befallen until the coming of One to whom belongeth the right, Then will I bestow it.

The problem was the carnal kings, the lawless princes of Israel. There was no point in God removing the lawless kings of Israel from David’s throne only to put other lawless men on it. The crown was lifted off those carnal men. Those who were exalted – those kings – were abased. He who was abased — who rode into Jerusalem on a donkey and who was mocked, spit on and despised of men — was exalted. That which Israel had demanded – human kings instead of Yahweh as king – was overthrown, until the coming of the One to whom that throne really belongs.

Forty human kings was enough. That system did not work. Even the few good kings had bad problems. The result of Israel demanding kings like all the other nations was ruin, ruin, ruin — both of their nations and of the throne.

It has been posited that when Zedekiah was overthrown, the throne of David was moved from the Holy Land to other nations of the world, who are said to be the lost ten tribes, and still has a man or woman sitting on it. That position violates some basic principles.

First, God never put a woman in as monarch of His people. Jezebel ruled with Ahab and apparently made decisions on her own, like trying to kill Elijah, like a queen. Athaliah killed almost all the royal line of David and ruled like a queen over Judah for six years. Yahweh did not put those women in those positions and the results of them being there were catastrophic. Therefore, any throne that has women monarchs on it obviously cannot be the throne of David.

Second, the throne of David ultimately is the throne of Yahweh Himself. He is the King that Israel replaced with human kings.

1Chr 28:5
5) Of all my sons (for Yahweh has given me many sons), he has chosen Solomon my son to sit on the throne of Yahweh’s kingdom over Israel.

1Chr 29:23
23) Then Solomon sat on the throne of Yahweh as king instead of David his father, and prospered; and all Israel obeyed him.

2Chr 9:8 (Queen of Sheba said this.)
8) Blessed be Yahweh your God, who delighted in you, to set you on his throne, to be king for Yahweh your God: because your God loved Israel, to establish them forever, therefore made he you king over them, to do justice and righteousness.”

Therefore, David’s throne, which is Yahweh’s throne, would never be in another land. The Holy Throne will only be in the Holy Land — Zion.

Ps 2:1-6
1) Why do the nations rage, and the peoples plot a vain thing?
2) The kings of the earth take a stand, and the rulers take counsel together, against Yahweh, and against his Anointed, saying,
3) “Let’s break their bonds apart, and cast their cords from us.”
4) He who sits in the heavens will laugh. The Lord will have them in derision.
5) Then he will speak to them in his anger, and terrify them in his wrath:
6) “Yet I have set my King on my holy hill of Zion.”

Ps 9:7-11
7) But Yahweh reigns forever. He has prepared his throne for judgment.
8) He will judge the world in righteousness. He will administer judgment to the peoples in uprightness.
9) Yahweh will also be a high tower for the oppressed; a high tower in times of trouble.
10) Those who know your name will put their trust in you, for you, Yahweh, have not forsaken those who seek you.
11) Sing praises to Yahweh, who dwells in Zion, and declare among the people what he has done.

Ps 48:2
2) Beautiful in elevation, the joy of the whole earth, is Mount Zion, on the north sides, the city of the great King.

Ps 76:1-2
1) In Judah, God is known. His name is great in Israel.
2) His tabernacle is also in Salem; His dwelling place in Zion.

Ps 132:13-18
13) For Yahweh has chosen Zion. He has desired it for his habitation.
14) “This is my resting place forever. Here I will live, for I have desired it.
15) I will abundantly bless her provision. I will satisfy her poor with bread.
16) Her priests I will also clothe with salvation. Her saints will shout aloud for joy.
17) There I will make the horn of David to bud. I have ordained a lamp for my anointed.
18) I will clothe his enemies with shame, but on himself, his crown will be resplendent.”

Ps 135:21
21) Blessed be Yahweh from Zion, Who dwells at Jerusalem. Praise Yah!

Ezek 43:1-7
1) Afterward he brought me to the gate, even the gate that looks toward the east.
2) Behold, the glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the east: and his voice was like the sound of many waters; and the earth shined with his glory.
3) It was according to the appearance of the vision which I saw, even according to the vision that I saw when I came to destroy the city; and the visions were like the vision that I saw by the river Chebar; and I fell on my face.
4) The glory of Yahweh came into the house by the way of the gate whose prospect is toward the east.
5) The Spirit took me up, and brought me into the inner court; and behold, the glory of Yahweh filled the house.
6) I heard one speaking to me out of the house; and a man stood by me.
7) He said to me, Son of man, this is the place of my throne, and the place of the soles of my feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel forever. The house of Israel shall no more defile my holy name, neither they, nor their kings, by their prostitution, and by the dead bodies of their kings in their high places;

So the throne of David, which is the holy throne of Yahweh, will only be in the Holy Land.

Third, the ten tribes of Israel rejected the throne of David at the beginning of their kingdom. The whole basis of their kingdom was that they were torn away from the line of David because of Solomon’s sins.

Rehoboam was king after Solomon. When he said that he would tax Israel more heavily than Solomon did, the ten tribes rebelled against him.

1Kgs 12
16) When all Israel saw that the king didn’t listen to them, the people answered the king, saying, “What portion have we in David? Neither do we have an inheritance in the son of Jesse. To your tents, Israel! Now see to your own house, David.” So Israel departed to their tents.
17) But as for the children of Israel who lived in the cities of Judah, Rehoboam reigned over them.
18) Then king Rehoboam sent Adoram, who was over the men subject to forced labor; and all Israel stoned him to death with stones. King Rehoboam made speed to get him up to his chariot, to flee to Jerusalem.
19) So Israel rebelled against the house of David to this day.

Taking those tribes away from the throne of David was not just the rebellion of the tribes but that was God’s doing.

1Kgs 12 (cont.)
20) It happened, when all Israel heard that Jeroboam was returned, that they sent and called him to the congregation, and made him king over all Israel: there was none who followed the house of David, but the tribe of Judah only.
21) When Rehoboam had come to Jerusalem, he assembled all the house of Judah, and the tribe of Benjamin, a hundred and eighty thousand chosen men, who were warriors, to fight against the house of Israel, to bring the kingdom again to Rehoboam the son of Solomon.
22) But the word of God came to Shemaiah the man of God, saying,
23) “Speak to Rehoboam the son of Solomon, king of Judah, and to all the house of Judah and Benjamin, and to the rest of the people, saying,
24) ‘Thus says Yahweh, “You shall not go up, nor fight against your brothers, the children of Israel. Everyone return to his house; for this thing is of me.”’” So they listened to the word of Yahweh, and returned and went their way, according to the word of Yahweh.

“This thing is of me,” Yahweh said. God purposely removed the ten tribes away from the throne of David.

When will God reverse what He did and put the ten tribes again under the throne of David?

As we read before –

Ezek 37:21-25
21) Say to them, Thus says the Lord Yahweh: Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the nations, where they are gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land:
22) and I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all; and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all;
23) neither shall they defile themselves any more with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with any of their transgressions; but I will save them out of all their dwelling places, in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them: so shall they be my people, and I will be their God.
24) My servant David shall be king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd: they shall also walk in my ordinances, and observe my statutes, and do them.
25) They shall dwell in the land that I have given to Jacob my servant, in which your fathers lived; and they shall dwell therein, they, and their children, and their children’s children, forever: and David my servant shall be their prince for ever.

The ten tribes will again be under the throne of David only when the righteous descendant of David is on that soon-coming throne. Never before.

The ten tribes were purposely and specifically removed by God Himself from the throne of David because of Solomon’s sins. Why would God reverse His judgment against Solomon? Did He somehow accept Solomon’s flagrant idolatry?

The kingdom of the ten tribes then ended because of the sins of their own kings. Why would God switch the throne from one bunch of carnal kings to another, particularly a bunch of pagans? Sinful kings was the problem. Going from one group of sinful kings to another, and then another – move over, move over, move over – would not solve the problem.

Only one King can solve the problem of sin. The throne of David, the throne of Yahweh, is reserved for that Son of David.

As James said, the tent of David was in ruins. And as Peter said, God raised up the Messiah to sit on David’s throne. And as Ezekiel said, that throne was to be no more until He comes, whose right it is.

What a beautiful, beautiful picture.

The governments of men do not work. They do not work because people are inherently carnal, sinful, destructive. All types of governments have been tried in human history, monarchies, oligarchies, democracies, and republics. At some point they all lead to anarchy, people out of control, attacking each other, rebelling against God.

How do you control the people?

During the times of the judges, Israel suffered centuries of oppression from Gentile kings, because of their sin and lack of self-control. They had a King who offered them a way to overcome their human natures but they opted for a human king instead. That throne they set up then went to ruins, ruins, ruins – stated three times for emphatic finality. The world was populated through the three sons of Noah. Israel began through the three patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Peter denied Christ three times. Christ was three days and three nights in the grave. He was really, really, really dead. And the throne of David was in ruins, ruins, ruins. Those carnal kings who replaced Yahweh were done, done, done.

Finished.

Forty kings was enough.

He who came from David will return to sit on the throne of David, over physical and spiritual Israel. That throne is His right, because He is righteous.

Hallelujah for that, and for the fact that even before He returns to sit on the throne of David, He can be our King right now, if we look to Him instead of only to carnal human rulers.

Chapter 35 – The Promise to David

Posted on November 26, 2017 by danlwhite

The End Time Church: From the Cathedrals to the Catacombs

By Dan L. White

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB) which is in the public domain.

Chapter 35

The Promise to David

When David asked to build Yahweh a house, Yahweh said no.

Then God told David He would build him a house.

2 Sam 7:11-16
11) …Moreover Yahweh tells you that Yahweh will make you a house.
12) When your days are fulfilled, and you shall sleep with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you, who shall proceed out of your bowels, and I will establish his kingdom.
13) He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.
14) I will be his father, and he shall be my son. If he commits iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men;
15) but my loving kindness shall not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away before you.
16) Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before you. Your throne shall be established forever.”’”

That promise was —

Solomon would build the temple.
David’s house — his descendants — and his throne would be established forever.
If Solomon sinned as Saul did, then he would be chastened with the rod and stripes of men.
Solomon, however, would not have the same fate as Saul, whose family forever lost the throne.

The big punishment on Saul was not that he was personally killed and removed as king. Saul ruled for forty years, the same as David and Solomon, and that was a long reign for him personally. However, his descendants were forever disqualified from being kings of Israel, including even noble Jonathan. That was Saul’s lasting punishment, which would never happen to David. His throne would be established forever.

In that initial promise to David, God did not explain what the rod and stripes for disobedience would be. Whatever punishment the house of David would endure, they would not lose the throne forever as Saul had done. However, a throne that is established forever absolutely requires a perfect king, because God would never allow an everlasting throne filled with evil kings.

Never.

The promise that David’s throne would be established forever was repeated multiple times in the Bible. But that promise was repeated with a big ‘if.’ If David’s descendants disobey, there will be the rod and stripes.

When David established Solomon as king, David repeated the promise.

1Chr 28:4-7
4) However Yahweh, the God of Israel, chose me [David] out of all the house of my father to be king over Israel forever. For he has chosen Judah to be prince; and in the house of Judah, the house of my father; and among the sons of my father he took pleasure in me to make me king over all Israel.
5) Of all my sons (for Yahweh has given me many sons), he has chosen Solomon my son to sit on the throne of Yahweh’s kingdom over Israel.
6) He said to me, ‘Solomon, your son, shall build my house and my courts; for I have chosen him to be my son, and I will be his father.
7) I will establish his kingdom forever, if he continues to do my commandments and my ordinances, as at this day.’

Next, when David was near death, he cited the promise again.

1Kgs 2:1-4
1) Now the days of David drew near that he should die; and he commanded Solomon his son, saying,
2) “I am going the way of all the earth. You be strong therefore, and show yourself a man;
3) and keep the instruction of Yahweh your God, to walk in his ways, to keep his statutes, his commandments, his ordinances, and his testimonies, according to that which is written in the law of Moses, that you may prosper in all that you do, and wherever you turn yourself.
4) That Yahweh may establish his word which he spoke concerning me, saying, ‘If your children take heed to their way, to walk before me in truth with all their heart and with all their soul, there shall not fail you,’ he said, ‘a man on the throne of Israel.’

When Solomon was building the temple, Yahweh Himself repeated the promise, again with an ‘if.’

1Kgs 6:11-14
11) The word of Yahweh came to Solomon, saying,
12) “Concerning this house which you are building, if you will walk in my statutes, and execute my ordinances, and keep all my commandments to walk in them; then will I establish my word with you, which I spoke to David your father.
13) I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will not forsake my people Israel.”|
14) So Solomon built the house, and finished it.

The converse there is that if Israel did not walk in God’s commandments, then He would forsake them, at least for a while.

A little later, Yahweh gave a personal message to Solomon, repeating the promise, repeating the ‘if.’

1Kgs 9:1-7
1) It happened, when Solomon had finished the building of the house of Yahweh, and the king’s house, and all Solomon’s desire which he was pleased to do,
2) that Yahweh appeared to Solomon the second time, as he had appeared to him at Gibeon.
3) Yahweh said to him, “I have heard your prayer and your supplication, that you have made before me. I have made this house holy, which you have built, to put my name there forever; and my eyes and my heart shall be there perpetually.
4) As for you, if you will walk before me, as David your father walked, in integrity of heart, and in uprightness, to do according to all that I have commanded you, and will keep my statutes and my ordinances;
5) then I will establish the throne of your kingdom over Israel forever, according as I promised to David your father, saying, ‘There shall not fail you a man on the throne of Israel.’
6) But if you turn away from following me, you or your children, and not keep my commandments and my statutes which I have set before you, but shall go and serve other gods, and worship them;
7) then will I cut off Israel out of the land which I have given them; and this house, which I have made holy for my name, will I cast out of my sight; and Israel shall be a proverb and a byword among all peoples.

Two parts of the promise —

That David’s throne would be established forever —
That David’s descendants would be punished for disobedience —

–seem to conflict, yet they both must be true.

A descendant of David will be ruling into eternity, but with a period of rod and stripes of men.

When Yahweh gave that personal message to Solomon, he explained the rod and stripes. The temple had just been completed by Solomon, yet God warned Israel that if they turned away from Him —

They would be cut off out of the Holy Land;
That just built temple would be cast out of His sight.

Notice verse 7 again.

1 Kgs 9
7) then will I cut off Israel out of the land which I have given them; and this house, which I have made holy for my name, will I cast out of my sight;

Obviously then, whenever the temple was destroyed and Israel was cut off from the land….

They would not be a kingdom with a king of the family of David ruling in the Holy Land at that time. They would be cast off for disobedience.

Still a little later, when he was dedicating the new temple, in a prayer to Yahweh, Solomon repeated the promise, again with the ‘if.’

Second Chronicles records that event, with a similar account in First Kings 8.

2Chr 6:10-17
10) “Yahweh has performed his word that he spoke; for I [Solomon] have risen up in the place of David my father, and sit on the throne of Israel, as Yahweh promised, and have built the house for the name of Yahweh, the God of Israel.
11) There I have set the ark, in which is the covenant of Yahweh, which he made with the children of Israel.”
12) He stood before the altar of Yahweh in the presence of all the assembly of Israel, and spread forth his hands
13) (for Solomon had made a bronze scaffold, five cubits long, and five cubits broad, and three cubits high, and had set it in the midst of the court; and on it he stood, and kneeled down on his knees before all the assembly of Israel, and spread forth his hands toward heaven;)
14) and he said, “Yahweh, the God of Israel, there is no God like you, in heaven, or on earth; you who keep covenant and loving kindness with your servants, who walk before you with all their heart;
15) who have kept with your servant David my father that which you promised him: yes, you spoke with your mouth, and have fulfilled it with your hand, as it is this day.
16) “Now therefore, Yahweh, the God of Israel, keep with your servant David my father that which you have promised him, saying, ‘There shall not fail you a man in my sight to sit on the throne of Israel, if only your children take heed to their way, to walk in my law as you have walked before me.’
17) Now therefore, Yahweh, the God of Israel, let your word be verified, which you spoke to your servant David.

In all those places and more besides, the promise to David was repeated.

The whole of Psalm 89 is about the promise to David and further explains the ‘if.’

Ps 89
3) “I have made a covenant with my chosen one, I have sworn to David, my servant,
4) ‘I will establish your seed forever, and build up your throne to all generations.’” Selah.

20) I have found David, my servant. I have anointed him with my holy oil,
21) with whom my hand shall be established. My arm will also strengthen him.
22) No enemy will tax him. No wicked man will oppress him.
23) I will beat down his adversaries before him, and strike those who hate him.
24) But my faithfulness and my loving kindness will be with him. In my name, his horn will be exalted.|
25) I will set his hand also on the sea, and his right hand on the rivers.
26) He will call to me, ‘You are my Father, my God, and the rock of my salvation!’
27) I will also appoint him my firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth.
28) I will keep my loving kindness for him forevermore. My covenant will stand firm with him.
29) I will also make his seed endure forever, and his throne as the days of heaven.

The family of David was appointed to bring forth God’s firstborn, the Messiah who came from the line of David.

The family genealogy in Matthew 1 and Luke 3 specifically and carefully confirms that the Messiah came from David. Yeshua, God’s firstborn, is “the highest of the kings of the earth” and his throne will be “as the days of heaven,” which is forever. That establishes David’s throne forever. God keeps his covenant with David’s descendant and this descendant, God’s firstborn, keeps God’s covenant perfectly, unlike the other kings of Judah and Israel.

That promise of the Messiah did not happen during the times of the kings of Judah or Israel. The rule of those kings ended and the Messiah had not come. The Messiah came in God’s own time, and that Anointed One will take His everlasting throne in the same way — at God’s own time.

After that strong affirmation of David’s everlasting throne, Psalm 89 goes on to include the ‘if’ factor.

Ps 89 (cont.)
30) If his children forsake my law, and don’t walk in my ordinances;
31) if they break my statutes, and don’t keep my commandments;|
32) then I will punish their sin with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes.
33) But I will not completely take my loving kindness from him, nor allow my faithfulness to fail.
34) I will not break my covenant, nor alter what my lips have uttered.
35) Once have I sworn by my holiness, I will not lie to David.
36) His seed will endure forever, his throne like the sun before me.
37) It will be established forever like the moon, the faithful witness in the sky.” Selah.

Again the two parts of the promise are repeated in Psalm 89 –

That David’s descendants will be punished for disobedience;
But his throne will be established forever.

Remember when Yahweh explained the rod and stripes to Solomon?

1 Kgs 9
7) then will I cut off Israel out of the land which I have given them; and this house, which I have made holy for my name, will I cast out of my sight; and Israel shall be a proverb and a byword among all peoples.

For disobedience the temple would be destroyed, and Israel would be cast out of the land. For some time, they would not have a kingdom.

And in Psalm 89 — just after saying that the throne would be forever — the psalm goes on to bewail the fact that the throne was cast down!

Ps 89 (cont.)
38) But you have rejected and spurned. You have been angry with your anointed.
39) You have renounced the covenant of your servant. You have defiled his crown in the dust.
40) You have broken down all his hedges. You have brought his strongholds to ruin.
41) All who pass by the way rob him. He has become a reproach to his neighbors.
42) You have exalted the right hand of his adversaries. You have made all of his enemies rejoice.
43) Yes, you turn back the edge of his sword, and haven’t supported him in battle.
44) You have ended his splendor, and thrown his throne down to the ground.

When was the throne thrown down to the ground and the crown defiled in the dust?

When the Kingdom of Judah ended and Zedekiah, the last king of the Jews, was dethroned.

So Psalm 89 repeats the promise that the throne of David would be established forever, but also states that the throne was cast down. The line of David was not ruling over Judah. From the time of Solomon’s son Rehoboam, the family of David had not ruled over Israel/Samaria. And from the fall of Zedekiah, the family of David did not rule over Judah.

In sum, Psalm 89 says that David’s throne would be established forever, but the throne was cast down.

Finally, the psalm ends with these two questions.

Ps 89:48-49
48) What man is he who shall live and not see death, who shall deliver his soul from the power of Sheol? Selah.
49) Lord, where are your former loving kindnesses, which you swore to David in your faithfulness?

Question 1: Who would be delivered from the power of the grave?

Question 2: With the throne cast down, what about that promise to David that his throne would be established forever?

Chapter 34 – The King of the Church

Posted on November 15, 2017 by danlwhite

The End Time Church: From the Cathedrals to the Catacombs

By Dan L. White

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB) which is in the public domain.

Chapter 34

The King of the Church

When Yeshua began His ekklesia, Tiberius was emperor of Rome.

Quite a contrast — Caesar and Christ.

Emperors were emperors because they personally eliminated any competition. Herod was the penultimate example of that. As mentioned earlier, Herod claimed to be a Jew so he didn’t eat pork. But to eliminate any possible threat to his throne, he killed his own sons. That led Augustus to say it was better to be Herod’s hog than his son. The Roman emperors including Augustus were the same as Herod — wary of any threat to their reign and willing to go to any length to protect themselves.

Tiberius, king of the civilized world, a pernicious pervert, forcefully controlled the empire by the power of Rome, the Roman army. Ancient History Encyclopedia says, The Roman army, famed for its discipline, organistion, and innovation in both weapons and tactics, allowed Rome to build and defend a huge empire which for centuries would dominate the Mediterranean world and beyond, and concludes that it was arguably one of the longest surviving and most effective fighting forces in military history, https://www.ancient.eu/Roman_Army.

Roman society was so vile that even pagans like Augustus and Cicero were repulsed by it. The only way to keep such lawless, licentious people under control was with the heavy iron fist of Rome and its brutal armies. That’s how Rome made the Pax Romana, the Roman Peace so often praised by historians.

For example, Judah rebelled against Rome and in 70 AD, after a starvation siege of Jerusalem, the Romam army butchered hundreds of thousands of Jews and destroyed their revered temple. Then there was the Pax Romana.

However, about sixty years later the Jews rebelled again. More Jews butchered and this time the Romans totally destroyed the whole city of Jerusalem and plowed the ground under it. Again they then experienced the Pax Romana.

That’s how Rome rules. Rome is the last of the four great world empires mentioned in Daniel: Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome. They all ruled the same way, controlling people by force, not free will.

That’s how Satan rules.

Quite a contrast — Caesar and Christ. Or Satan and Christ.

Yeshua, Creator of everything, sustainer of everything, who gave his life for everyone, controls his ekklesia not by a Roman army, but by His spirit. His flock of obedient sheep don’t have to be coerced, just changed. They are to change from being like Tiberius to become like Christ.

This is the change.

Col 3:1-15
1) If then you were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God.
2) Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are on the earth.
3) For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
4) When Christ, our life, is revealed, then you will also be revealed with him in glory.
5) Put to death therefore your members which are on the earth: sexual immorality, uncleanness, depraved passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry;
6) for which things’ sake the wrath of God comes on the children of disobedience.
7) You also once walked in those, when you lived in them;
8) but now you also put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and shameful speaking out of your mouth.
9) Don’t lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old man with his doings,
10) and have put on the new man, who is being renewed in knowledge after the image of his Creator,
11) where there can’t be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondservant, freeman; but Christ is all, and in all.
12) Put on therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, a heart of compassion, kindness, lowliness, humility, and perseverance;
13) bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, if any man has a complaint against any; even as Christ forgave you, so you also do.
14) Above all these things, walk in love, which is the bond of perfection.
15) And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful.

There is no overstating the contrast there. These are the two great kingdoms of the universe, Satan and Christ. Rome was and will be Satan’s kingdom in this world. How does Rome rule? By coercion and killing. Yeshua, who will set up the Kingdom of God at his return, leads his followers by his spirit. His subjects do not have to be coerced and intimidated. They willingly follow their King, because they have the same spirit as their King, the same heart — “a heart of compassion, kindness, lowliness, humility, and perseverance.”

No one else can lead this ekklesia by spirit. That leaves only Yeshua as King of the ekklesia, the head of the church, because He is the only one who can lead like this.

Always the question is –

How do you control the people? How can a society be prevented from destroying itself? How is human nature neutered? By the power of Rome or the spirit of God?

No human can change another person’s heart. Humans can only browbeat and kill or coddle and bribe, and that’s how political and religious rulers try to control their people. The whole history of mankind is a record of this kind of tyranny, with few exceptions. Remember your history lessons in school? Alexander, Julius Caesar, Napoleon, Hitler — the study of history is mostly a memorizing of the most powerful despots and their vainglorious exploits.

Rome’s method of ruling works in the short term, but as happened with Rome, eventually the controlled crowd either overcomes their overlords or gets cloyed with the welfare bribes and then erupts out of control. The government of Rome looks good for a while but always ultimately fails and falls in on itself.

Only God can lead by the spirit of God, not banging on heads but changing hearts. That’s why one who is God is King of the ekklesia, with no other intervening kings at all.

Col 1:16-18
16) For by him all things were created, in the heavens and on the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things have been created through him, and for him.
17) He is before all things, and in him all things are held together.
18) He is the head of the body, the assembly [ekklesia], who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.

In all things He is preeminent. To see Yeshua as this king, who leads by the heart, takes enlightened eyes of the heart.

Eph 1:18-23
18) having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of his calling, and what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,
19) and what is the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to that working of the strength of his might
20) which he worked in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and made him to sit at his right hand in the heavenly places,
21) far above all rule, and authority, and power, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in that which is to come.
22) He put all things in subjection under his feet, and gave him to be head over all things for the assembly,
23) which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

“Head over all things for the assembly” — the pattern holds.

When Yahweh rescued Israel from the government of Egypt, He did not give them another Pharaoh. He gave them Him. Israel did not have a burdensome government bureaucracy, as Rome and human governments do. God was their government. When Israel demanded a human king, Yahweh told them what their king would take from them: their money in taxes, their children as servants, and their lives as soldiers. When Israel got a human king, though, what they lost most of all was looking directly to Yahweh as their King.

In the wilderness, Israel followed their King in the cloud and the fire. Moses was the prophet and Aaron was the high priest, but Israel did not follow Moses or Aaron. They followed the cloud and the fire, and Moses and Aaron followed the cloud and fire, too. No one, including Moses and Aaron, knew ahead of time when they would move. They moved only when the cloud moved.

In the Holy Land at the time of the Judges, Israel did not have the cloud and the fire because they weren’t moving anymore, but they still had the same leader to guide them in their everyday lives. Judges taught them and were used to rescue them from their oppressions, but their leader was still the one who had led them through the wilderness. Yahweh El Shaddai was their king and there was no human bureaucracy under him to get in the way.

In the very same way, in the New Covenant ekklesia, God did not give his people a Christian version of Tiberius, Augustus or Julius Caesar. He did not give them a pope, archbishop, or chief apostle; none of the apostles was between the people and Christ. God gave them Yeshua, Yahweh’s Salvation, head over all things for the ekklesia. He is still the cloud and the fire, leading by his spirit, showing his people where to go.

You will recall how John and James, along with their mother, asked to sit by Christ’s side when he ruled. Yeshua was given that position at the right hand of the Father, as David had prophesied.

Ps 110:1-3
1) A Psalm by David. Yahweh says to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool for your feet.”
2) Yahweh will send forth the rod of your strength out of Zion. Rule in the midst of your enemies.
3) Your people offer themselves willingly in the day of your power, in holy array. Out of the womb of the morning, you have the dew of your youth.

At his trial, Yeshua told his accusers who he was and where he was going.

Luke 22:67-69
67) “If you are the Christ, tell us.” But he said to them, “If I tell you, you won’t believe,
68) and if I ask, you will in no way answer me or let me go.
69) From now on, the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the power of God.”

At his ascension, the Anointed One, the Messiah, took his appointed place.

Mark 16:19
19) So then the Lord, after he had spoken to them, was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God.

Peter pointed out to the Jews the position of the one they had condemned to death.

Acts 2:32-33
32) This Yeshua God raised up, to which we all are witnesses.
33) Being therefore exalted by the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this, which you now see and hear.

Acts 5:31 ISV
31) God has exalted to his right hand this very man as our Leader and Savior in order to extend repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel.

1 Pet 3:22
22) who is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven, angels and authorities and powers being made subject to him.

Repeatedly the New Testament points to Christ at the right hand of God the Father. Paul wrote —

Rom 8:34
34) Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, yes rather, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.

Col 3:1
1) If then you were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God.

When Stephen was being murdered by the Jewish religious rulers, he did not fight against the powers of the world by force of arms, but only by the force of the spirit. And just as Israel saw the cloud and the fire, so Stephen saw Yeshua, at the right hand of God.

Acts 7:54-60
54) Now when they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed at him with their teeth.
55) But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Yeshua standing on the right hand of God,
56) and said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!”
57) But they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and rushed at him with one accord.
58) They threw him out of the city, and stoned him. The witnesses placed their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul.
59) They stoned Stephen as he called out, saying, “Lord Yeshua, receive my spirit!”
60) He kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, “Lord, don’t hold this sin against them!” When he had said this, he fell asleep.

So the New Testament emphasizes that the King of the ekklesia is at the right hand of the Father, the greatest position of honor in existence.

The disciples asked the King if the kingdom would be set up immediately.

Acts 1:6-8
6) Therefore, when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, are you now restoring the kingdom to Israel?”
7) He said to them, “It isn’t for you to know times or seasons which the Father has set within his own authority.
8) But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. You will be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth.”

Christ did not tell his disciples that He was restoring the physical kingdom of Israel at that time. Tiberius and Herod still remained on their thrones. But Yeshua had now been anointed to sit on that throne of David. When He rode into Jerusalem on a virgin donkey, he was hailed as king. When He was crowned with a crown of thorns, He was hailed as king. When he was hung on the stake, his royal title was written over his head — King of the Jews. When He returns, then He will sit on His throne.

Matt 25:31-34
31) “But when the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory.
32) Before him all the nations will be gathered, and he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.
33) He will set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.
34) Then the King will tell those on his right hand, ‘Come, blessed of my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world;

Tiberius was king of the world and Yeshua is King of the ekklesia. These two systems of government are based on opposite principles. Notice the difference between the ruler of this world and the ruler of the world to come.

Mat 4:1-10
(1) Then Yeshua was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
(2) When he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was hungry afterward.
(3) The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.”
(4) But he answered, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.’”
(5) Then the devil took him into the holy city. He set him on the pinnacle of the temple,
(6) and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you.’ and, ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you don’t dash your foot against a stone.’”
(7) Yeshua said to him, “Again, it is written, ‘You shall not test the Lord, your God.’”
(8) Again, the devil took him to an exceedingly high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world, and their glory.
(9) He said to him, “I will give you all of these things, if you will fall down and worship me.”
(10) Then Yeshua said to him, “Get behind me, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and you shall serve him only.’”

Did you see the difference?

Are you hungry after fasting for forty days? Stop fasting to battle me and turn these rocks into bread.
Prove you have great power. I dare you to show off and throw yourself down from the temple.
I will give you everything in the world if you will just bow down to me.

Everything Satan offered was based on selfishness. Get instead of give.

Everything Christ lived was based on selflessness. Everything He did in His life was giving. Not only did He refuse Satan’s offers of bread when He was hungry, of vanity to show off and of self-glorification to be ruler of this world — He gave all that up — but He also gave up even His own life. Satan offered Yeshua everything, which would have cost Yeshua his life. Yeshua gave up everything, including His physical life, and that gave Him eternal life.

We all have the same choice.

These are the two systems of government and of personal beliefs. Satan controls his people by appealing to their self-love. His society offers wealth, self glorification, and self indulgence. And if none of those hooks works, then Satan appeals to the most basic element of self-love — self preservation. If you don’t follow him, he will kill you.

Just as he did with the Messiah.

Satan shows how he thinks when he spoke of Job.

Job 1:8-11
8) Yahweh said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant, Job? For there is none like him in the earth, a blameless and an upright man, one who fears God, and turns away from evil.”
9) Then Satan answered Yahweh, and said, “Does Job fear God for nothing?
10) Haven’t you made a hedge around him, and around his house, and around all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land.
11) But put forth your hand now, and touch all that he has, and he will renounce you to your face.”

Satan believed that Job would turn against God if God allowed Job to lose his property and position. After all, Satan did.

When that didn’t work, Satan was sure Job would turn against God if Job lost his health and well being.

Job 2:3-5
3) Yahweh said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? For there is none like him in the earth, a blameless and an upright man, one who fears God, and turns away from evil. He still maintains his integrity, although you incited me against him, to ruin him without cause.”
4) Satan answered Yahweh, and said, “Skin for skin. Yes, all that a man has he will give for his life.
5) But put forth your hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will renounce you to your face.”

Satan thought Job had the same heart as himself — normal selfish human nature. He was wrong about Job. He is right about most people, though. In order to follow Christ, you need a changed heart. But Satan doesn’t need to change your heart to get you to follow him.

All he has to do is just get you to be yourself.

Satan’s attack on Job shows his modus operandi. If you don’t follow Satan, first he will take your wealth. If that doesn’t work, then he will try to take your health or your life. As he did with Christ, Satan tries everything to get you to bow down to him. Satan doesn’t really care if you love him in your heart, as long as you obey him in your life. When you put yourself first, you are putting Satan first.

Satan counts on you putting yourself first, just as he does. He knows you have normal human nature —

Which is the same as his nature!

Rom 8:7 KJV
7) Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.

Rom 8:7 WEB
7) because the mind of the flesh is hostile towards God; for it is not subject to God’s law, neither indeed can it be.

Satan, which means adversary, is God’s enemy. He naturally breaks God’s commandments. You are the same as Satan, naturally breaking God’s commandments, naturally God’s enemy.

Satan rules by appealing to your human nature, to love yourself more than anyone. Christ rules by changing human nature, so that you love God and others more than yourself.

Satan and Rome say, ‘Bow to me or I will kill you.’ Now notice the opposite way.

Isa 55:1-3
1) “Come, everyone who thirsts, to the waters! Come, he who has no money, buy, and eat! Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.
2) Why do you spend money for that which is not bread? and your labor for that which doesn’t satisfy? listen diligently to me, and eat you that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.
3) Turn your ear, and come to me; hear, and your soul shall live: and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.

That’s an invitation, not an attack. As is this.

Matt 11:28
28) “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest.

When Peter spoke to the very first converts in the ekklesia, what did he do?

Acts 2:38-41
38) Peter said to them, “Repent, and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Yeshua Christ for the forgiveness of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
39) For the promise is to you, and to your children, and to all who are far off, even as many as the Lord our God will call to himself.”
40) With many other words he testified, and exhorted them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation!”
41) Then those who gladly received his word were baptized. There were added that day about three thousand souls.

Peter did not use a sword as he had with Machus’ ear. Instead he used the people’s ears to speak to their hearts. He did not threaten their lives; he offered them life.

Why did those three thousand people then commit to turn their lives around?

Because they were cut to the heart.

Acts 2
37) Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”

People do not become followers of Christ to keep their heads from being cut off. They follow Christ because they are cut to the heart.

Christ’s followers have to follow His example. They have to be willing to give up everything, even their own lives, to follow their Master. To do that, they have to be cut to the heart, which leads to a changed heart.

What is that change?

Not to put self first, even to the point of willingly giving up life itself.

You see the two extremes. Satan says ‘Obey me or I will kill you.’ Christ says ‘Obey me even if it kills you.’

Those Christianos who Peter first preached to made that change. Very soon they were scattered by Jewish persecution, but that just fanned their fervor. A few decades later under nutty Nero, the Christianos were also persecuted by Rome, in the most cruel fashion Satan could contrive. The Christianos endured that and still carried on. Some of those first three thousand who were cut to the heart almost certainly went through both of those times of persecution — and they deliberately chose to do it.

“And so, to get rid of this rumor [that Nero had set fire to Rome,] Nero set up as the culprits and punished with the utmost refinement of cruelty a class hated for their abominations, who are commonly called Christians. Christus, from whom their name is derived, was executed at the hands of the procurator Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius. Checked for a moment, this pernicious superstition again broke out, not only in Judea, the source of the evil, but even in Rome…. Accordingly, arrest was first made of those who confessed [to being Christians]; then, on their evidence, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much on the charge of arson as because of [their] hatred for the human race. Besides being put to death they were made to serve as objects of amusement; they were clothed in the hides of beasts and torn to death by dogs; others were crucified, others set on fire to serve to illuminate the night when daylight failed, Tacitus, Annals (XV.44).

Isn’t that amazing?

Satan had Nero cover the Christianos with waxed garments and burn them alive like torches but they endured his terror because they had a fire in their hearts that was greater than Nero’s fires. That’s why it’s so important that no other kings, popes or potentates get between Yeshua and his people. Only He can heal the human heart of its self love.

Christ is the King, head over all things for the ekklesia.

Chapter 33 – Who Is King of the Church?

Posted on October 20, 2017 by danlwhite

The End Time Church: From the Cathedrals to the Catacombs

By Dan L. White

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB) which is in the public domain.

Chapter 33

Who is King of the Church?

Stephen said that Israel was the ekklesia in the wilderness.

And they were kinda wild.

Acts 7:37-39
(37) This is that Moses, who said to the children of Israel, The Lord our God will raise up a prophet for you from among your brothers, like me.
(38) This is he who was in the assembly [ekklesia] in the wilderness with the angel that spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers, who received living revelations to give to us,
(39) to whom our fathers wouldn’t be obedient, but rejected him, and turned back in their hearts to Egypt,

That ekklesia was called out of Egypt and they were all together physically in the wilderness. Spiritually, though, they were all over the place.

Num 14:22-23
22) because all those men who have seen my glory, and my signs, which I worked in Egypt and in the wilderness, yet have tempted me these ten times, and have not listened to my voice;
23) surely they shall not see the land which I swore to their fathers, neither shall any of those who despised me see it:
Moses was their spiritual leader but he was not their king. Moses led Israel by the power of God, not the coercion of human government.

So who was king of that ekklesia?

Again, Yahweh God Almighty was their king. Yahweh did not give Israel the same type of government He had rescued them from in Egypt, a human pharaoh or emperor or king. He simply gave them Him.

What did God do, then, with the New Testament ekklesia?

At the time of the Festival of Pentecost in 30 CE, when Christ began his ekklesia, Tiberius had succeeded the first Roman Emperor Augustus. Historians write that Tiberius, in his reign from 14 to 37 CE, stabilized the empire and increased its wealth. Encyclopedia Britannica has these comments on this king of the “civilized” world of that time.

Although the opening years of Tiberius’s reign seem almost a model of wise and temperate rule, they were not without displays of force and violence, of a kind calculated to secure his power. The one remaining possible contender for the throne, Postumus, was murdered, probably at Tiberius’s orders. The only real threat to his power, the Roman Senate, was intimidated by the concentration of the Praetorian Guard, normally dispersed all over Italy, within marching distance of Rome…

There were, to be sure, occasional wars and acts of savage repression. Tiberius’s legions put down a provincial rebellion with considerable bloodshed. In Rome itself, on the pretext that four Jews had conspired to steal a woman’s treasure, Tiberius exiled the entire Jewish community…He built himself a dozen villas ringing Capri, with prisons, underground dungeons, torture chambers, and places of execution. He filled his villas with treasure and art objects of every kind and with the enormous retinue appropriate to a Caesar: servants, guards, entertainers, philosophers, astrologers, musicians, and seekers after favour. If the near-contemporary historians are to be believed, his favourite entertainments were cruel and obscene. Even under the most favourable interpretation, he killed ferociously and almost at random. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Tiberius

As with Augustus, Tiberius was the Pontifex Maximus, the chief priest of the Roman religion. This tyrant, known as a perverse monster, was both king of the world and high priest of the world’s official religion. By force, not free choice, this emperor controlled politics and religion. People could have any religion they wanted, as long as the emperor approved it. Different areas had different religions, but all had to be approved by Rome, and they all had to include the official religion of Rome, with its Pontifex Maximus.

That was Rome’s government, one man, with human failings — a madman emperor.

Would Christ give his new flock the same type of government that Rome had? In his new ekklesia, did Christ set up a human pyramidal government between Him and his people, with a human emperor, with human failings?

Who was the king of the new church?

Many say it was Peter.

They don’t call him king of the church. Instead they call him Pope, meaning Father. Of course, such a title directly contradicts Christ’s plain command, as do all such religious titles.

Matt 23:8-12
8) But don’t you be called ‘Rabbi,’ for one is your teacher, the Christ, and all of you are brothers.
9) Call no man on the earth your father, for one is your Father, he who is in heaven.
10) Neither be called masters, for one is your master, the Christ.
11) But he who is greatest among you will be your servant.
12) Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

Of course, the office of Pope is a very exalted position. Such an exalted office also violates the principle of being a servant, instead of a human king.

Still, millions of people around the earth believe that Peter was the first pope, the first absolute ruler of Christ’s scattered ekklesia. Non-Catholics who adhere to the same type of governing system as Rome might call Peter another title, like chief apostle or archbishop, but it is the same position as Pope — the king of the church.

Paul didn’t think that Peter was king of the church. Paul put Peter in his place, as Paul wrote in his letter to Galatia.

Gal 2:1-14
(1) Then after a period of fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus also with me.
(2) I went up by revelation, and I laid before them the Good News which I preach among the Gentiles, but privately before those who were respected, for fear that I might be running, or had run, in vain.

Notice that Paul said he went privately to “those who were respected” about the conflict over circumcision.

What does that show?

It shows there was no human king of the church in Jerusalem. Had there been a king or pope, Paul would certainly have gone to him. But Paul went to those who were respected, and no one of them was over the others.

Gal 2 cont.
(3) But not even Titus, who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised.
(4) This was because of the false brothers secretly brought in, who stole in to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage;
(5) to whom we gave no place in the way of subjection, not for an hour, that the truth of the Good News might continue with you.
(6) But from those who were reputed to be important (whatever they were, it makes no difference to me; God doesn’t show partiality to man)—they, I say, who were respected imparted nothing to me,

Further, in verse 6 Paul spoke of those who were reputed to be important. None of those guys was the king of the church, because you don’t speak of a king as if he is “reputed to be important.” A king is important!

Paul said that God does not show partiality to man; that is, God Himself does not defer to human rulers. And those who were justifiably respected imparted nothing to Paul — because Paul had his calling directly from Christ himself, not from a human church organization.

Gal 2 cont.
(7) but to the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the Good News for the uncircumcised, even as Peter with the Good News for the circumcised
(8) (for he who worked through Peter in the apostleship with the circumcised also worked through me with the Gentiles);

Peter was the apostle to the Jews and Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles. That did not mean that others were not also sent to the Jews and the Gentiles, but Peter and Paul were used at that time as prime messengers. And since there were two of them, Peter and Paul, neither was king over the other. Or king over anyone.

Gal 2 cont.
(9) and when they perceived the grace that was given to me, James and Cephas and John, they who were reputed to be pillars, gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcision.

The pillars of the early flock, those who were respected for their spiritual strength, were James, Cephas or Peter, and John. James was Yeshua’s half brother, Peter had been Christ’s close associate, and John was that disciple whom Yeshua especially loved. Those three guys were lumped together as reputed pillars, but none of them was a king.

Gal 2 cont.
(10) They only asked us to remember the poor—which very thing I was also zealous to do.
(11) But when Peter came to Antioch, I resisted him to his face, because he stood condemned.
(12) For before some people came from James, he ate with the Gentiles. But when they came, he drew back and separated himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision.
(13) And the rest of the Jews joined him in his hypocrisy; so that even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy.
(14) But when I saw that they didn’t walk uprightly according to the truth of the Good News, I said to Peter before them all, “If you, being a Jew, live as the Gentiles do, and not as the Jews do, why do you compel the Gentiles to live as the Jews do?

What did Peter do?

Under the Old Covenant, Jews and Gentiles, circumcised and uncircumcised, did not associate. At Christ’s death, circumcision and that separation ended. So Peter ate with the Gentile Christianos until some who still advocated circumcision came from James and Jerusalem, then Peter withdrew from the Gentiles. That does not mean that James supported circumcision, but only that some Pharisees had come from Jerusalem, where James was. Had Peter been king of the church, he would not have feared James.

Then Paul told Peter off for that bit of hypocrisy. Not only did he correct Peter, but he did so before all the Jew and Gentile Christianos!

Here’s a tip in diplomacy.

Don’t ever try that with a king, a pope, a chief apostle or whatever title a religious emperor has. If you tell him off before a whole group of people, or even individually, you will be cast out of the synagogue, disfellowshipped from the flock, anathematized from the assembly, and possibly euthanized. They may even burn your bones!

That one passage in Galatians shows that Peter was not king, pope, chief apostle, etc. of the church.

Of course, there is nothing to indicate that Peter saw himself as king of the church. In his first letter, he said that he was an apostle, not the apostle, just one of those who were sent.

1Pet 1:1
1) Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the chosen ones who are living as foreigners in the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia,

Then Peter exhorted the elders — the other old men — as a fellow elder, not as a king.

1Pe 5:1-3
(1) Therefore I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and who will also share in the glory that will be revealed.
(2) Shepherd the flock of God which is among you, exercising the oversight, not under compulsion, but voluntarily, not for dishonest gain, but willingly;
(3) neither as lording it over those entrusted to you, but making yourselves examples to the flock.

Peter was a fellow elder, who did not lord it over the others.

Notice how a Pope is supposed to be greeted, from an NPR interview with a Catholic official.

What if the pope approaches me?

Don’t just stand there — genuflect. That means bend at the knee, for you non-Catholics.

Do I kiss the ring?

Yes, if you are Catholic and the pope offers his hand. If you’re not Catholic, you can opt to shake his hand. That’s what President Bush did on Tuesday when he met the pope at Andrews Air Force Base outside of Washington, D.C. The ring is a mark of the papacy and, according to Smith, kissing it is a sign of respect and affection.

What do I call the pope?

Address him as “Your Holiness” or “Holy Father.”
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89667043, 9/16/2017

By contrast, Peter did not allow people to bow down to him.

Acts 10:24-26
24) On the next day they entered into Caesarea. Cornelius was waiting for them, having called together his relatives and his near friends.
25) When it happened that Peter entered, Cornelius met him, fell down at his feet, and worshiped him.
26) But Peter raised him up, saying, “Stand up! I myself am also a man.”

Well, then, since Peter wasn’t king of the church, was Paul king? After all, he was the one who told Peter off.

Actually, Paul said that he was the least of the apostles.

1Co 15:3-9
(3) For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
(4) that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,
(5) and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.
(6) Then he appeared to over five hundred brothers at once, most of whom remain until now, but some have also fallen asleep.
(7) Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles,
(8) and last of all, as to the child born at the wrong time, he appeared to me also.
(9) For I am the least of the apostles, who is not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the assembly of God.

That’s why Paul went to Jerusalem to discuss the conflict over circumcision, to check with the other apostles to make sure that he was not running in vain. He was the latest and least of the apostles.

Gal 2
(2) I went up by revelation, and I laid before them the Good News which I preach among the Gentiles, but privately before those who were respected, for fear that I might be running, or had run, in vain.

Paul even said that he was the least of the saints.

Eph 3:8
(8) To me, the very least of all saints, was this grace given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ,

No, Paul was not king of the church, either.

How about James? After all, he was the one who apparently Peter feared. And it was James who pronounced his final “sentence” in the circumcision debate.

Act 15:19 KJV
(19) Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God:

However, most other translations do not use the word “sentence” to describe James’s conclusion.

Act 15:1-21, World English Bible
(1) Some men came down from Judea and taught the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised after the custom of Moses, you can’t be saved.”
(2) Therefore when Paul and Barnabas had no small discord and discussion with them, they appointed Paul and Barnabas, and some others of them, to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders about this question.
(3) They, being sent on their way by the assembly, passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, declaring the conversion of the Gentiles. They caused great joy to all the brothers.
(4) When they had come to Jerusalem, they were received by the assembly and the apostles and the elders, and they reported all things that God had done with them.

Paul and Barnabas were not received at Jerusalem by a king. They were received by the group, the ekklesia, along with the apostles and elders.

Act 15 cont.
(5) But some of the sect of the Pharisees who believed rose up, saying, “It is necessary to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the law of Moses.”
(6) The apostles and the elders were gathered together to see about this matter.

When a group is ruled by a pope or a chief apostle or big bishop, whatever matter is under consideration is settled by that ruler, the king of the group. Like a political king, he gets advice from his advisers, then he makes the decision all by himself. Everyone else is expected to go along with that ruling as if it’s from God, because it is thought that the pope, chief apostle, or big bishop sits in the place of God. However, in that early ekklesia, the apostles and elders gathered together about circumcision. That means there was no human king of the church.

After much discussion by everyone, Peter rose and gave his papal decree.

Acts15 cont.
(7) When there had been much discussion, Peter rose up and said to them, “Brothers, you know that a good while ago God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the nations should hear the word of the Good News, and believe.
(8) God, who knows the heart, testified about them, giving them the Holy Spirit, just like he did to us.
(9) He made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith.
(10) Now therefore why do you tempt God, that you should put a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?
(11) But we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they are.”

Well, no, that was no papal decree by Peter. It was just what he thought, and he ended his thoughts not with a decree, but with a question. Why put on the Gentiles a burden that Israelites could not bear?

Then Paul and Barnabas added their experience with the Gentiles to the discussion.

Acts15 cont.
(12) All the multitude kept silence, and they listened to Barnabas and Paul reporting what signs and wonders God had done among the nations through them.

Finally, James gave his “sentence.”

Acts15 cont.
(13) After they were silent, James answered, “Brothers, listen to me.
(14) Simeon has reported how God first visited the nations, to take out of them a people for his name.
(15) This agrees with the words of the prophets. As it is written,
(16) ‘After these things I will return. I will again build the tabernacle of David, which has fallen. I will again build its ruins. I will set it up,
(17) That the rest of men may seek after the Lord; all the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the Lord, who does all these things.
(18) All of God’s works are known to him from eternity.’
(19) “Therefore my judgment is that we don’t trouble those from among the Gentiles who turn to God,
(20) but that we write to them that they abstain from the pollution of idols, from sexual immorality, from what is strangled, and from blood.
(21) For Moses from generations of old has in every city those who preach him, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath.”

The King James Version has James issuing a sentence, but the World English Bible has James simply saying “my judgment is,” following the example of the American Standard Version, and most other translations are similar. The Greek word involved is ‘krino,’ which can mean simply to think or decide, as in this verse when Paul decided not to stop at Ephesus.

Act 20:16
(16) For Paul had determined [krino] to sail past Ephesus, that he might not have to spend time in Asia; for he was hastening, if it were possible for him, to be in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost.

Acts 16 says that Paul went through Gentile cities, delivering the message that had been decided — not by James alone — but by the apostles and elders at Jerusalem, including James.

Act 16:4
(4) As they went on their way through the cities, they delivered the decrees to them to keep which had been ordained by the apostles and elders who were at Jerusalem.

James was no more king of the church than Peter or Paul. That ekklesia did not have a papal bull or royal decree issued by a human king but a decision made by the apostles and elders.

Humans need kings to keep them under control, because of destructive human nature — that crazy carnality we all have. What happened in Acts 15 showed that those early Christianos were using a different spirit, the spirit of God. In that meeting, they had the mind of Christ. Therefore they were able to think alike, all thinking like the Messiah.

No, there was no papal bull, no royal decree by someone like King James of England, no unilateral doctrinal decision by the chief apostle. There were only the decrees ordained by the apostles and elders.

The most important thing about those decrees was not the decision against circumcision and the external signs of the laws of Moses, but how they made that decision. That was a miracle of the mind, letting Christ lead his church through his spirit.

And what a miracle it was!

Who were those guys who were there in that discussion?

John, whom Yeshua loved.

You remember John, who along with his mother and James his brother asked to be on the right and left hand of the Messiah in his kingdom. John kinda, like, put himself first there.

There was Peter. Remember when Peter, James and John were with Christ on the mountain when Moses and Elijah appeared? Peter blurted out to Yeshua, “Let’s make three tents here: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” Not a lot of thought went into that statement, since Christ, Moses and Elijah didn’t really need tents! When Christ wanted to wash Peter’s feet, Peter refused, then wanted Yeshua to wash his whole body. Keep calm, Peter! And when Christ told the disciples that He would be killed, Peter quickly corrected him. Not a good move. “Get behind me, Satan!” So having Peter around could make for a lively discussion!

James was there at the circumcision discussion. Who was James? Yeshua’s brother, who early on did not even believe that his oldest brother was the Messiah!

There were also Pharisees there. You know how easy they are to get along with. And Sadducees were there, because it said that many priests became part of the way.

And the Greek speakers in the ekklesia had already had a disagreement with the Hebrew speakers.

Act 6:1
(1) Now in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplying, a complaint arose from the Hellenists against the Hebrews, because their widows were neglected in the daily service.

That’s who was there in that circumcision conference, and all those people, John, Peter, James, Pharisees, Sadducees, Hellenists, Hebrews, et al —

All were led by the spirit of their Messiah to have the same mind. And that mind was the mind of Christ.

Php 2:1-5
(1) If therefore there is any exhortation in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any tender mercies and compassion,
(2) make my joy full, by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind;
(3) doing nothing through rivalry or through conceit, but in humility, each counting others better than himself;
(4) each of you not just looking to his own things, but each of you also to the things of others.
(5) Have this in your mind, which was also in Christ Jesus,

Or as the King James puts verse 5 —

Phil 2:5
5) Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:

What they did at that circumcision conference was humanly unbelievable. They had no pope and nobody wanted to be pope!

James warned the ekklesia against indulging uppity people.

Jas 2:1-9
(1) My brothers, don’t hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ of glory with partiality.
(2) For if a man with a gold ring, in fine clothing, comes into your synagogue, and a poor man in filthy clothing also comes in;
(3) and you pay special attention to him who wears the fine clothing, and say, “Sit here in a good place;” and you tell the poor man, “Stand there,” or “Sit by my footstool;”
(4) haven’t you shown partiality among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts?
(5) Listen, my beloved brothers. Didn’t God choose those who are poor in this world to be rich in faith, and heirs of the Kingdom which he promised to those who love him?
(6) But you have dishonored the poor man. Don’t the rich oppress you, and personally drag you before the courts?
(7) Don’t they blaspheme the honorable name by which you are called?
(8) However, if you fulfill the royal law, according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you do well.
(9) But if you show partiality, you commit sin, being convicted by the law as transgressors.

No popes allowed for James.

Instead of being papal, Peter told the ekklesia to return a blessing when they were insulted. Kings don’t do that.

1Pe 3:8-9
(8) Finally, be all like-minded, compassionate, loving as brothers, tender hearted, courteous,
(9) not rendering evil for evil, or insult for insult; but instead blessing; knowing that to this were you called, that you may inherit a blessing.

And John, who with his brother wanted a chief position in the kingdom, had to warn the ekklesia against Diotrophes, who was trying to do what John had wanted to do earlier.

3 Jn 1:5-10
(5) Beloved, you do a faithful work in whatever you accomplish for those who are brothers and strangers.
(6) They have testified about your love before the assembly. You will do well to send them forward on their journey in a way worthy of God,
(7) because for the sake of the Name they went out, taking nothing from the Gentiles.
(8) We therefore ought to receive such, that we may be fellow workers for the truth.
(9) I wrote to the assembly, but Diotrephes, who loves to be first among them, doesn’t accept what we say.
(10) Therefore if I come, I will call attention to his deeds which he does, unjustly accusing us with wicked words. Not content with this, neither does he himself receive the brothers, and those who would, he forbids and throws out of the assembly.

This ekklesia was the opposite of the ekklesia in the wilderness. The wilderness ekklesia was not close to God. The Jerusalem ekklesia was. Since they were close to God, they were also close to each other. In that amazing meeting in Jerusalem, the fruits of the flesh — hatred, strife, jealousies, outbursts of anger, rivalries, divisions, heresies — all gave way to love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control, the fruits of the spirit (Gal. 5).

Only Yeshua can rule like that, not with an emperor’s army but with Christ’s mind and spirit. And Christ rules only like that and not through human emperors whose prime function is to control what people think.

No, the pope or chief apostle or archbishop — the King — of the ekklesia was not Peter, Paul or James. There is only one being who can fill that position. Only He can unify people by the spirit instead of by force.

Chapter 32 – So What is the Church, Anyway?

Posted on September 1, 2017 by danlwhite

The End Time Church: From the Cathedrals to the Catacombs

By Dan L. White

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB) which is in the public domain.

Chapter 32

So What is the Church, Anyway?

There were no denominations. There were no cathedrals. Yet Christ said, “I will build my church,” Mat 16:18, KJV.

With no denominations or cathedrals, what in the world did He build?

He did build it quickly.

Act 2:41 WEB
(41) Then those who gladly received his word were baptized. There were added that day about three thousand souls.

Act 4:4
(4) But many of those who heard the word believed, and the number of the men came to be about five thousand.

Act 6:1,7
(1) Now in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplying, a complaint arose from the Hellenists against the Hebrews, because their widows were neglected in the daily service.
(7) The word of God increased and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem exceedingly. A great company of the priests were obedient to the faith.

“[T]he Lord added to the church daily,” Act 2:47 KJV. Three thousand here, five thousand there, and to whatever degree, that happened every day! The number of disciples multiplied exceedingly!

So only a few weeks after that Pentecost festival, the ‘church’ was up to probably tens of thousands of disciples.

The Greek word rendered as ‘church’ in the King James translation is ‘ekklesia.’ Later English translations followed the King James in that. However, some earlier English translations of the Bible did not say that ekklesia meant church. The Tyndale New Testament in 1525, the Coverdale Bible in 1535, the Great Bible in 1540, Matthew’s Bible in 1549 and the Bishop’s Bible in 1568 all translated ekklesia as ‘congregation.’ The Geneva Bible of 1557 did render ekklesia as ‘church,’ but it had marginal notes that made ‘church’ authorities uncomfortable.

The King James translation of 1611 is called the Authorized Version because he authorized it. King James was head of the Anglican Church, begun in 1534 by Henry VIII. Rome would not allow Henry to divorce his wife, so Henry declared himself head of a new church, the Church of England, and then he did what he wanted with his wives. Henry supported the doctrine of the divine right of kings to rule, that his right to rule came directly from God and only God could judge him, because only God had authority above the king.

You can see how that helped support his newly created position as head of the church.

King James, about a half century later, likewise applied the divine right of kings doctrine to himself. King James, as head of the church that Henry started, was challenged by reformers such as the Pilgrims and Puritans. In fact, they came to America specifically to escape King James’ church.

A biography of William Bradford titled Bradford of Plymouth, by Bradford Smith described Puritanism.

Its innovating principle was in the idea that the Bible, rather than any established religious hierarchy, was the final authority. Therefore every man, every individual, had direct access to the word of God. It was the Puritan’s aim to reconstruct and purify not only the church, but individual conduct and all the institutions men live by.

King James did not agree with the Puritans that the Bible, rather than any established religious hierarchy, was the final authority in religion. He thought he was. The Church of England was the only official church in England. Everybody in England was in King James’ church because everybody was born into it. King James wanted to ensure that an English Bible version supported his position as head of his church. Therefore, King James authorized his version of the Bible — the Authorized Version — to support his authority as head of the church.

The New World Encyclopedia has these comments on King James’ translation project.

The King James’ Bible was a political project to assert the king’s control over the established and state supported religion in Great Britain.

In the preface, the translators of the King James note: “we have on the one side avoided the scrupulosity of the Puritans, who leave the old Ecclesiastical words, and betake them to other, as when they put WASHING for BAPTISM, and CONGREGATION instead of CHURCH:”

King James gave the translators instructions, which were designed to discourage polemical notes, and to guarantee that the new version would conform to the ecclesiology of the Church of England.

King James’ instructions included requirements that:…The old ecclesiastical words to be kept; as the word church, not to be translated congregation, &c.

In other words, King James ordered the translators to put authority over accuracy.

The King James translation is rightly hailed as a great translation, yet it’s mostly just a restating of the Tyndale Bible. Analysis shows that about four-fifths of the King James version was taken directly from Tyndale, as in this example from the Beatitudes.[1]

Tyndale
Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are they which hunger and thirst for righteousness: for they shall be filled.

King James
Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.

Pretty close! The KJV is noted for its noble language, most of which is simply copied from Tyndale, and that brings to mind the saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”

However, the KJV, by King James royal order, included words to support ecclesiastical authority, such as church, while Tyndale did not. Church was understood to mean not just a scattered body of believers but an authoritarian organization, such as the Church of England that James headed.

After the King James Bible became the common English edition, with the king of England and his church behind it, most later English Bible translations then followed the practice of rendering ekklesia as church. In modern times, several versions choose to translate the word more accurately. In Matthew 16:18, where the King James says,“I will build my church,” the Literal Translation of the Holy Bible and Young’s Literal Translation translate ekklesia not as church but as assembly. And in KJV Acts 2:47, “added to the church daily,” the Contemporary English Version, the English Standard Version, the Good News Bible and the International Standard Version say either “added to their number” or “added to their group.”

Here is the question.

The Greek New Testament uses the word ekklesia. Most translations follow the King James and render it as church, to support centralized church authority. Others translate it as congregation or assembly, which does not support centralized church authority.

Does the word ekklesia support ecclesiastical authority or defrock it?

It’s widely assumed that ekklesia was a very religious word that God picked to use in the New Testament. It is said to be “the called out ones” and that makes the word ekklesia sound very — ecclesiastical. However, when the New Testament was written, ekklesia was a centuries old Greek word that related not to religion but mostly to Greek politics.

The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology defines the political word ekklesia.

[E]kklesia, derived via ek-kaleo, which was used for the summons to the army to assemble, from kaleo, to call (–. Call). It is attested from Eur. and Hdt. onwards (5th cent. B.C.), and denotes in the usage of antiquity the popular assembly of the competent full citizens of the polis, city. It reached its greatest importance in the 5th cent, and met at regular intervals (in Athens about 30–40 times a year, elsewhere less frequently) and also in cases of urgency as an extra-ordinary ekklesia. Its sphere of competence included decisions on suggested changes in the law (which could only be effected by the council of the 400), on appointments to official positions and — at least in its heyday — on every important question of internal and external policy (contracts, treaties, war and peace, finance). To these was added in special cases (e.g. treason) the task of sitting in judgment, which as a rule fell to regular courts. The ekklesia opened with prayers and sacrifices to the gods of the city.

Thus, ekklesia, centuries before the translation of the Old Testament and the time of the NT, was clearly characterized as a political phenomenon, repeated according to certain rules and within a certain framework. It was the assembly of full citizens, functionally rooted in the constitution of the democracy, an assembly in which fundamental political and judicial decisions were taken.[2]

Ekklesia was an assembly, a gathering together of a crowd.

In the New Testament, Acts 19 shows that ekklesia was not a religious word. This ekklesia was more like a mob than a church meeting.

Act 19:23-41 WEB
(23) About that time there arose no small stir concerning the Way.
(24) For a certain man named Demetrius, a silversmith, who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought no little business to the craftsmen,
(25) whom he gathered together, with the workmen of like occupation, and said, “Sirs, you know that by this business we have our wealth.
(26) You see and hear, that not at Ephesus alone, but almost throughout all Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away many people, saying that they are no gods, that are made with hands.
(27) Not only is there danger that this our trade come into disrepute, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be counted as nothing, and her majesty destroyed, whom all Asia and the world worships.”
(28) When they heard this they were filled with anger, and cried out, saying, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!”
(29) The whole city was filled with confusion, and they rushed with one accord into the theater, having seized Gaius and Aristarchus, men of Macedonia, Paul’s companions in travel.
(30) When Paul wanted to enter in to the people, the disciples didn’t allow him.
(31) Certain also of the Asiarchs, being his friends, sent to him and begged him not to venture into the theater.
(32) Some therefore cried one thing, and some another, for the assembly [ekklesia] was in confusion. Most of them didn’t know why they had come together.
(33) They brought Alexander out of the multitude, the Jews putting him forward. Alexander beckoned with his hand, and would have made a defense to the people.
(34) But when they perceived that he was a Jew, all with one voice for a time of about two hours cried out, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!”
(35) When the town clerk had quieted the multitude, he said, “You men of Ephesus, what man is there who doesn’t know that the city of the Ephesians is temple keeper of the great goddess Artemis, and of the image which fell down from Zeus?
(36) Seeing then that these things can’t be denied, you ought to be quiet, and to do nothing rash.
(37) For you have brought these men here, who are neither robbers of temples nor blasphemers of your goddess.
(38) If therefore Demetrius and the craftsmen who are with him have a matter against anyone, the courts are open, and there are proconsuls. Let them press charges against one another.
(39) But if you seek anything about other matters, it will be settled in the regular assembly [ekklesia].
(40) For indeed we are in danger of being accused concerning today’s riot, there being no cause. Concerning it, we wouldn’t be able to give an account of this commotion.”
(41) When he had thus spoken, he dismissed the assembly [ekklesia].

The World English Bible, an update of the American Standard Version which was a sequel to the King James, translates ekklesia there as ‘assembly.’ Even the King James is forced to do that. They couldn’t call that mob a church! That near riot had nothing to do with church authority, so it was all right for the King James translators to render ekklesia there — and only there — as assembly. All English Bibles agree. That rowdy crowd was no church meeting.

But that rowdy crowd was an ekklesia.

Just a few verses later, ekklesia occurs again. The World English Bible, to be consistent, again translates ekklesia as “assembly.”

Act 20:17 WEB
(17) From Miletus he sent to Ephesus, and called to himself the elders of the assembly [ekklesia].

However, the King James Version and most other translations revert back to church.

Act 20:17 KJV
(17) And from Miletus he sent to Ephesus, and called the elders of the church.

It’s the same Greek word in both places — ekklesia. In Acts 19 it’s an assembly or crowd. In Acts 20 it’s a church. The word ‘assembly’ connotes a bunch of people gathered together. The word ‘church’ connotes an institution, like King James’s Anglican Church or the Roman Catholic Church.

Again, King James ordered his translators to deliberately avoid translating certain words accurately and instead to render them ecclesiastically, to support institutional religion.

His institutional religion.

Other translations then followed that practice. If they had not, their translations would not have been accepted by the institutional churches.

So then, does the word ekklesia support ecclesiastical authority or defrock it?

No where in common Greek usage did ekklesia refer to a religious institution. Oxford Dictionary defines the word ‘ecclesiastical’ as “Relating to the Christian Church or its clergy — ‘the ecclesiastical hierarchy.’” Ecclesiastical is obviously from ekklesia, yet ekklesia means the exact opposite of “ecclesiastical hierarchy.”

How ironic is that?

Ecclesiastical is from ekklesia, yet means the opposite of ekklesia. Ecclesiastical is institutional, a church with cathedrals and soaring sanctuaries and controlled by people with soaring titles and positions. Ekklesia is just a gathering of people, as when they got together in Athens for a town meeting or when they filled the street in Ephesus for a near riot or —

When they follow the Messiah in the Way.

Ekklesia is a crowd of people gathered together for a purpose.

So in the New Testament ekklesia, the New Covenant crowd, there were no denominations, there were no church buildings, and there was no ecclesiastical hierarchy. If you don’t have denominations, you can’t have a ruling ecclesiastical hierarchy.

Realistically, in the earliest ekklesia, there was no way they could have had an ecclesiastical hierarchy. The purpose of an ecclesiastical hierarchy is to control people. Think about the logistics involved in trying to humanly control tens of thousands of brand new disciples.

On that Pentecost Day in 30 CE, when “The Lord added to the assembly day by day,” Acts 2:47 WEB, who were those people?

Acts 2:7-11
7) They were all amazed and marveled, saying to one another, “Behold, aren’t all these who speak Galileans?
8) How do we hear, everyone in our own native language?
9) Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and people from Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia,
10) Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, the parts of Libya around Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes,
11) Cretans and Arabians: we hear them speaking in our languages the mighty works of God!”

They were people from all over and they had done what Paul did later.

Acts 20:16
16) For Paul had determined to sail past Ephesus, that he might not have to spend time in Asia; for he was hastening, if it were possible for him, to be in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost.

Israelites from all those lands had come to Jerusalem for the feast of Pentecost. After that incredible day when the Holy Spirit fell, they stayed in Jerusalem. Why leave? That’s where the action was.

Acts 2:44-47 WEB
44) All who believed were together, and had all things in common.
45) They sold their possessions and goods, and distributed them to all, according as anyone had need.
46) Day by day, continuing steadfastly with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread at home, they took their food with gladness and singleness of heart,
47) praising God, and having favor with all the people. The Lord added to the assembly day by day those who were being saved.

After Stephen was executed by the Jews, however, those new disciples did leave Jerusalem. The Jews persecuted the new Christianos and the ekklesia spread out. The crowd dispersed physically.

Where did they go?

Some spread throughout Israel. Others surely went back home, to Parthia, Media, Cappadocia, Pontus, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, Libya, Rome, Crete, Arabia, etc.

The crowd was no longer all together in one place. They were all over the place.

But —

They were still the crowd, still the assembly of Christianos, who had been called out to follow Yeshua, wherever and whoever they were. They were the ekklesia, here, there and everywhere.

And in spite of King James’ later efforts, there was no ruling church hierarchy.

They didn’t have time — only a few weeks — to set one up. They were scattered all over the place and dispersed among all the other peoples. And wherever they went, the crowd got bigger! The ekklesia enlarged, expanded and exploded! No ecclesiastical hierarchy could possibly keep up with that incredible, humanly uncontrollable crowd.

No person could keep up with all the persons in the Way.

No human could possibly keep up with that scattered ekklesia.

But Christ could.

Yeshua didn’t need an ecclesiastical version of the Roman Empire to control His flock. He didn’t even need membership rolls. He knew who was in his crowd and wherever they were, His crowd followed Him.

Remember the example of Korah and his comrades, the Levites who tried to also seek the priesthood? That might have been confusing to the people at the time, because Korah and his family were indeed Levites, who took care of the Ark of the Covenant. Very important position! Some people might have thought that Korah should lead just like Moses. That could have been humanly confusing, but God knew who His people were.

Num 16:5
(5) He said to Korah and to all his company, “In the morning, Yahweh will show who are his, and who is holy, and will cause him to come near to him. Even him whom he shall choose, he will cause to come near to him.

Even when those who are supposed to be shepherds don’t do their job, God does His. He shepherds His sheep.

Ezek 34
5) They were scattered, because there was no shepherd; and they became food to all the animals of the field, and were scattered.
6) My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and on every high hill: yes, my sheep were scattered on all the surface of the earth; and there was none who searched or sought.
7) Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of Yahweh:
8) As I live, says the Lord Yahweh, surely because my sheep became a prey, and my sheep became food to all the animals of the field, because there was no shepherd, neither did my shepherds search for my sheep, but the shepherds fed themselves, and didn’t feed my sheep;
9) therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of Yahweh:
10) Thus says the Lord Yahweh: Behold, I am against the shepherds; and I will require my sheep at their hand, and cause them to cease from feeding the sheep; neither shall the shepherds feed themselves any more; and I will deliver my sheep from their mouth, that they may not be food for them.
11) For thus says the Lord Yahweh: Behold, I myself, even I, will search for my sheep, and will seek them out.
12) As a shepherd seeks out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered abroad, so will I seek out my sheep; and I will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day.
13) I will bring them out from the peoples, and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land; and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the watercourses, and in all the inhabited places of the country.
14) I will feed them with good pasture; and on the mountains of the height of Israel shall their fold be: there shall they lie down in a good fold; and on fat pasture shall they feed on the mountains of Israel.
15) I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will cause them to lie down, says the Lord Yahweh.
16) I will seek that which was lost, and will bring back that which was driven away, and will bind up that which was broken, and will strengthen that which was sick: but the fat and the strong I will destroy; I will feed them in justice.

God is quite capable of shepherding his sheep himself.

When Yeshua taught among the Jews, there was confusion. Some of the most religious Jews were the most opposed to this prophet. Who could know who was who?

John 10:19-27
(19) Therefore a division arose again among the Jews because of these words.
(20) Many of them said, “He has a demon, and is insane! Why do you listen to him?”
(21) Others said, “These are not the sayings of one possessed by a demon. It isn’t possible for a demon to open the eyes of the blind, is it?”

(24) The Jews therefore came around him and said to him, “How long will you hold us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.”
(25) Yeshua answered them, “I told you, and you don’t believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name, these testify about me.
(26) But you don’t believe, because you are not of my sheep, as I told you.
(27) My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.

Christ knows his people and they follow Him — directly. The ekklesia does not have to go through an ecclesiastical hierarchy to get to Christ. Christ is the ecclesiastical hierarchy.

“I know them, and they follow me.”

Very convenient.

Yeshua has their names in His book.

Rev 3:5
5) He who overcomes will be arrayed in white garments, and I will in no way blot his name out of the book of life, and I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.

Rev 21:27
(27) There will in no way enter into it anything profane, or one who causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

No ecclesiastical hierarchy can know who is in the Book of Life. Only the Lamb knows who is in his book. The Book of Life is not a church membership list. The Book of Life is an ekklesia list and only the head of the ekklesia can know — whoever and wherever they are — only the head of the ekklesia can know who is in His book.

Theologians have changed the ekklesia from a humanly uncontrollable crowd to a humanly controlled church. That is not the ekklesia of the New Testament. That is the ekklesia of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, like King James’ church or the Roman church or so many others. The ekklesia of the New Testament, the New Testament church, is a crowd without walls, an assembly that answers to only one Caller, and a group that can only be led by the supernatural Son of God.

This is most important to understand.

No mortal humans, no Romish empire, no ecclesiastical hierarchy can lead this scattered gathering of called out ones.

Only Christ can lead this flock, His flock.

He calls them.

He saves them.

He leads them.

In the earliest ‘church,’ there were no denominations. There were no cathedrals. Yet Christ said, “I will build my church.”

What in the world did He build?

He built a crowd of people who follow Him and His Way. The ekklesia are the called out ones, geographically scattered, spiritually united. The town crier in Athens called the citizens to assemble for a town meeting and Yeshua personally calls His sheep out to follow Him. He is the only one who knows who is written in His Book of Life and He knows each one of these people personally.

Would we not expect, then, that He also personally leads them? After all, He’s the only one who can.

ENDNOTES:
[1] http://www.tyndale.org/tsj03/mansbridge.html
[2] Colin Brown, The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology,. Vol. 3, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1979), p. 291.

Chapter 31 – Where is the One True Denomination?

Posted on August 11, 2017 by danlwhite

The End Time Church: From the Cathedrals to the Catacombs

By Dan L. White

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB) which is in the public domain.

Chapter 31

Where is the One True Denomination?

After the King was crucified, he was un-crucified. The Jews and Romans had killed Yahweh’s Salvation, but Yahweh stepped in to save him. Yeshua rose from the dead and was given a new life, a spirit life instead of a fleshly.

After that, on the Feast of Pentecost about three thousand people were cut to the quick and accepted Yahweh’s Salvation, the Passover Lamb that had been sacrificed. In the following days, more were added to that number.

Acts 2, King James Version
(46) And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart,
(47) Praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.

That was the beginning of what is commonly called the ‘church.’ “The Lord added daily to the ‘church,” as the King James says.

Earlier Christ had said:

Matt 16, KJV
(18) – I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

So what is the church?

The English word ‘church’ can mean:

a building, or a service in such a building;
an empire-like denomination;
the whole body of believers in Christ, whoever and wherever they are.

To which of these – the ‘church’ – did the Lord add to daily — a building, a denomination, or a crowd?

Which of these is the church that Christ built and that will always exist — a building, a denomination, or a worldwide group of believers?

Did ‘church’ mean a building?

Obviously not. When the ‘church’ was added to daily, they hadn’t had time to build a ‘church,’ so church there or anyplace in the New Testament did not mean a building. In fact, in the whole New Testament, there is never a specific mention of Christ’s followers building a church building. Ironically, most churches put great effort into constructing impressive buildings, something the original Christianos, the Greek word rendered as Christian, never did at all. They met in synagogues with the Jews or they met in homes.

Phm 1, KJV
(1) Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ, and Timothy our brother, unto Philemon our dearly beloved, and fellow labourer,
(2) And to our beloved Apphia, and Archippus our fellow soldier, and to the church in thy house:

1Cor 16, KJV
(19) The churches of Asia salute you. Aquila and Priscilla salute you much in the Lord, with the church that is in their house.

Col 4, KJV
(15) Salute the brethren which are in Laodicea, and Nymphas, and the church which is in his house.

So church in the New Testament did not mean ‘a building.’

That sounds like a small thing – ‘Yeah, they didn’t have church buildings’ – but consider that for a moment.

The church did not have churches!

One of the great points of pride for many church members is their church — their building. Can you imagine Christians without cathedrals? Yet the original Christianos had no soaring sanctuaries, other than the temple itself. They listened to the Hebrew scriptures being read and discussed just in homes or synagogues, as James pointed out.

Act 15
(21) For Moses from generations of old has in every city those who preach him, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath.”

There James was specifically referring to Christianos, who went to the synagogues every Sabbath.

Those early Christianos could not take pride in their church buildings, because they didn’t have church buildings.

Did church mean a denomination?

Often Christ’s statement, “I will build my church,” from the King James, is used to declare that Christ built a certain denomination, and that such and such a denominational corporation is the one true church that Christ built. Many people spend great efforts trying to find that one true church, sorting through the many denominations that make that claim.

Here is their thinking.

“Christ said, I will build my church. Where is that church?”

Again, they are applying the word church to mean a denomination with a human hierarchy and corporate structure. In reality such seekers are asking, “Where is the true denomination?”

However, in the New Testament —

There were no denominations.

That thought can be a little surprising, but obviously it’s true. There were no Baptists or Anabaptists, Anglicans or Apostolics, Catholics or Congregationalists. They were all just Christians, or Christianos.

They were also described as part of the way; that is, the way of the Lord.

Acts 18, KJV
(24) And a certain Jew named Apollos, born at Alexandria, an eloquent man, and mighty in the scriptures, came to Ephesus.
(25) This man was instructed in the way of the Lord; and being fervent in the spirit, he spake and taught diligently the things of the Lord, knowing only the baptism of John.

Saul, before he became Paul, persecuted those in the way.

Acts 9, KJV
(1) And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest,
(2) And desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem.

The way was just one group. It wasn’t the Left-handed way or the Right-handed way or Whichever way. It was just –

The way — the way of the Master.

The way — undivided, non-denominational, uncontrollable by any human government.

The way — not a corporate membership list but a way of life.

When the believers were still just ‘the way,’ they hadn’t had time to split into denominations. So they didn’t have church buildings and they didn’t have church denominations.

What did they have?

Act 2, KJV
(42) And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.
(43) And fear came upon every soul: and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles.
(44) And all that believed were together, and had all things common;
(45) And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.
(46) And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart,
(47) Praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.

“The Lord” Yeshua added such as should be saved.

And with that, who needs denominations?

However, people being people, very quickly those early Christianos began to set up denominations —

Otherwise known as divisions.

Division is a fruit of the flesh.

Gal 5, World English Bible (WEB)
(19) Now the works of the flesh are obvious, which are: adultery, sexual immorality, uncleanness, lustfulness,
(20) idolatry, sorcery, hatred, strife, jealousies, outbursts of anger, rivalries, divisions, heresies,
(21) envyings, murders, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these; of which I forewarn you, even as I also forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God.

Division is a natural fruit of being human. You don’t have to work at it at all. “Hatred, strife, jealousies, rivalries, divisions, heresies” – all these just come naturally to people. You know how people are!

The Corinthians, who seemed to be a little more fleshly than others, were apparently the first to try setting up denominations.

1 Co 1
(10) Now I beg you, brothers, through the name of our Lord, Yeshua Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfected together in the same mind and in the same judgment.
(11) For it has been reported to me concerning you, my brothers, by those who are from Chloe’s household, that there are contentions among you.
(12) Now I mean this, that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” “I follow Apollos,” “I follow Cephas [Peter],” and, “I follow Christ.”
(13) Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized into the name of Paul?

The Corinthians weren’t the Apostolic Church or Church of the Nazarenes yet, but in that same vein some wanted to be the Paulstolic church and others wanted to be the Church of the Peterenes. Why did they do that? Why couldn’t they just be part of the way, just plain Christianos? Why did they suddenly want to be known as Paul’s disciples or Apollos followers or Peter people?

Because their contentious human spirits led them to divide into groups and then each group thought it was better than all the other groups. Even those who said they followed Christ must have done it in a divisive, exalting manner, still breaking into divisions instead of uniting only under Christ.

A little later in that letter to the Corinthians, Paul again spoke of their divisions/denominations.

1 Co 3, WEB
(1) Brothers, I couldn’t speak to you as to spiritual, but as to fleshly, as to babies in Christ.
(2) I fed you with milk, not with meat; for you weren’t yet ready. Indeed, not even now are you ready,
(3) for you are still fleshly. For insofar as there is jealousy, strife, and factions among you, aren’t you fleshly, and don’t you walk in the ways of men?
(4) For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” aren’t you fleshly?(5) Who then is Apollos, and who is Paul, but servants through whom you believed; and each as the Lord gave to him?
(6) I planted. Apollos watered. But God gave the increase.
(7) So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase.
(8) Now he who plants and he who waters are the same, but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor.
(9) For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s farming, God’s building.
(10) According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another builds on it. But let each man be careful how he builds on it.
(11) For no one can lay any other foundation than that which has been laid, which is Yeshua Christ.

To set up a denomination is to build on a foundation other than Christ himself. To be founded on following Paul or Peter or Apollos or any other man or group of men is to lay another foundation based on people, instead of on Christ.

Setting up denominations is common carnal behavior. As Paul said to them, “don’t you walk in the ways of men?” Denominations — divisions — is to be expected of normal carnal people. But not of Christ’s people.

Denomination is “from Latin dēnōminātiō — a calling by name,”[1] so picking a group name is forming a denomination. To form a denomination is simply to say ‘I am of Paul’ or ‘I am of Peter.’ Today, it comes out as ‘I am a Catholic’ or ‘I am a Presbyterian.’ There are even “nondenominational” corporations with the denominator “The Way,” who with that corporate ‘denominatio,’ have apparently done just what they sought to avoid doing.

If all Christians are truly part of the way, all headed the same way, there is no need to divide up as if going in different ways. All are fellow workers in God’s building, built on the one foundation of Christ.

However, almost no Christians think that denominations are really bad. But notice how seriously Paul took the Corinthian denominations. He said they were “still fleshly” and had “jealousy, strife, and factions” and could only be fed with milk as spiritual babies. Very strong words!

So exactly what did the Corinthians do that Paul disliked so much?

Some said ‘We follow Paul.’ Some said “We follow Peter.” Some said “We follow Apollos.” And some said “We follow Christ.”

That’s all they did.

They did not actually get to the point of setting up a formal Paul or Peter group, with its own distinctive name and its own church government and its own doctrinal statement. They just said, “We follow Paul”, or Peter or Apollos. They did what seems like very little, yet Paul railed against them – spiritual infants!

After the Protestant Reformation, when multitudes broke from the imperatorial control of the Roman Catholic Church, the prevailing denomination, what did those multitudes then do?

They just did what came naturally.

Some said, “We follow Luther.” Lutherans.

Some said, “We follow Calvin.” Presbyterians.

Some said, “We follow John Wesley.” Methodists.

And so on through thousands of Christian denominations worldwide. But they didn’t have Paul to correct them – well, they did have Paul to correct them if they had read it and done it – but they didn’t have Paul to correct them in person, so those multitudes went on to form denominations with governments and creeds and catechisms and who knows what all.

And almost nobody thinks that’s bad!

One article titled “Why We Need Denominations: How the variations of practice show us the beauty of the Gospel,” states, “While some within the Church see them as schismatic and unhelpful, I see them as lovely, imperfect variations on a single, pure theme.” [2]

So who thought of denominations as schismatic and unhelpful?

Paul did!

Think of it. What Paul severely condemned in the spiritually infantile, fleshly Corinthians, almost every Christian today accepts as normal and even as good. And what the Corinthians did is almost nothing compared to what all denominations have done. The Corinthians merely talked about following Paul or Peter or Apollos, but modern Christians have made a whole religion out of following the Roman Catholic Church, or the Baptist Church, or the Anglican Church, etc.

If Paul severely corrected the Corinthians for merely saying “We follow Paul,” what would he say to all the Christian denominations today?

Wow!

No, that’s not what Paul would say. That’s what I said, just thinking of what Paul would say.

Again, the earliest Christianos did not have denominations.

But today we do. And denominations must have names to distinguish themselves from other denominations. Moreover, the one true denomination must have the one correct Bible name for their denomination. If you’re going to find the one true denomination, you have to know the one true name.

What is it?

The most frequently occurring ‘church name’ in the King James Version is ‘church of God’ or ‘churches of God.’

Acts 20, KJV
(28) Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.

Scores of denominations have taken the corporate name ‘Church of God,’ believing that is the correct Bible name for their denomination, because that phrase occurs most often in the King James translation, which until recent times was almost the only English translation used.

However, other New Testament King James Version ‘names’ are “church of the living God, church of the firstborn, churches of Christ, and churches of the saints.” Often groups were ‘named’ by their location, like “church of the Thessalonians” or “church of the Laodiceans.” Excluding place names, there are multiple denominations with each of those ‘names,’ each believing they have a correct Bible name for their denomination, because that name is in the New Testament.

Of all those ‘names’, which name is the one correct Bible name for the one true denomination: Church of God, Church of the Living God, Church of Christ, Churches of the Saints, etc?

However, since all those names are in the New Testament, how could any of them be wrong? If the Bible used a ‘name,’ then it certainly can’t be wrong. But obviously they can’t all be the one correct name of the one true denomination.

What, then, is the one true name of the one true denomination?

But wait —

They didn’t have denominations.

They just had the way of life. And if there were no denominations, or no church splits under different names, then there were no formal denominational names. In fact, there is no one right denominational name of the true church, because the true church cannot be a Corinthian-like denomination.

Names like’ churches of Galatia’ were just descriptions, not formal names, as were all the other ‘church names.’ That’s why there are so many church ‘names’ in the New Testament. They’re not denominational names at all. Churches of God, churches of Christ, church of the firstborn, church of the Thessalonians and all the others just told what they were, and they were not formal, government authorized, 501(c)3 approved corporate titles.

We can scarcely conceive of Christianity without denominations, with their big buildings, formal names, and corporate boards and officers. That’s what we think of as ‘the church!’ Yet the earliest Christianos had none of that. Therefore if you search for the one true denomination, you are doomed to failure because the ‘true church’ did not have denominations. The earliest Christianos were certainly the ‘true church,’ full of the holy spirit and suffering intense persecution and martyrdom. But that original ‘true church’ was above denominational division. They were spiritually above having a corporation with a corporate name and a human hierarchy. There absolutely were no denominations, no such divisions, no denominational governments.

Why not?

What is so wrong with having a denomination instead of just having the way?

Paul explains, in great detail in his first letter to Corinth.

Early in the letter he asserts this.

1 Co 1, WEB
(4) I always thank my God concerning you, for the grace of God which was given you in Christ Yeshua;
(5) that in everything you were enriched in him, in all speech and all knowledge;

Don’t pass over that short statement. It can sound like merely a glowing spiritual greeting. No. Paul said that to the Corinthians for a reason. Christ enriches in everything; that is, the Rabbi, Teacher and Master actually teaches his people Himself, “in all knowledge.”

Right after bringing up how the Corinthians wanted to follow men, Paul talks about the wisdom of God versus the wisdom of men. Remember that what he says here is related to dividing up into groups.

1 Co 1, WEB
(18) For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are dying, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
(19) For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, I will bring the discernment of the discerning to nothing.”
(20) Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the lawyer of this world? Hasn’t God made foolish the wisdom of this world?
(21) For seeing that in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom didn’t know God, it was God’s good pleasure through the foolishness of the preaching to save those who believe.
(22) For Jews ask for signs, Greeks seek after wisdom,|
(23) but we preach Christ crucified; a stumbling block to Jews, and foolishness to Greeks,
(24) but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.
(25) Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
(26) For you see your calling, brothers, that not many are wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, and not many noble;
(27) but God chose the foolish things of the world that he might put to shame those who are wise. God chose the weak things of the world, that he might put to shame the things that are strong;
(28) and God chose the lowly things of the world, and the things that are despised, and the things that don’t exist, that he might bring to nothing the things that exist,|
(29) that no flesh should boast before God.
(30) Because of him, you are in Christ Yeshua, who was made to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption:
(31) that, according as it is written, “He who boasts, let him boast in the Lord.”

Why does Paul discuss the wisdom of God versus the wisdom of men while talking about the Corinthian divisions?

Because setting up denominations is following the wisdom of men instead of directly following the wisdom of God. Those people who wanted to set up denominations were just the foolish of the world, as Paul reminded them: “not many are wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, and not many noble; but God chose the foolish things of the world.” It wasn’t Paul or Peter or Apollos who were setting up denominations, but local Corinthians, those who were not wise, not mighty, not noble, and just plain foolish. And those local guys were the ones the people would have actually been following.

Don’t miss this. Paul points to the wisdom of God versus the wisdom of men, right after bringing up the Corinthian divisions, because that’s what denominations do! They cause people to follow the wisdom of men — the denomination’s leaders — instead of following Christ directly. Christ “was made to us wisdom from God.” Believe it or not, He is quite capable of leading His people, thank you very much.

Paul ends that section by warning against boasting. “He who boasts, let him boast in the Lord.”

Why?

Denominationalism is boasting. “My dog’s better than your dog.”

How about that? God called the foolish of the world so that none could boast, yet those early Christianos quickly began boasting to each other.

Remember at Christ’s last Passover meal, when the disciples went from wondering who the betrayer was to boasting about which of them was the greatest?

The Corinthians did about the same thing, with their denominations of Peter, Paul and Apollos, boasting which little group was the greatest. “My dog’s better than your dog!”

In the next chapter, remembering that this was a letter and not divided into chapters at all, Paul shows how God teaches his people.

1 Co 2, WEB
(9) But as it is written, Things which an eye didn’t see, and an ear didn’t hear, which didn’t enter into the heart of man, these God has prepared for those who love him.
(10) But to us, God revealed them through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.
(11) For who among men knows the things of a man, except the spirit of the man, which is in him? Even so, no one knows the things of God, except God’s Spirit.
(12) But we received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we might know the things that were freely given to us by God.
(13) Which things also we speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual things.
(14) Now the natural man doesn’t receive the things of God’s Spirit, for they are foolishness to him, and he can’t know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
(15) But he who is spiritual discerns all things, and he himself is judged by no one.
(16) For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he should instruct him? But we have Christ’s mind.

We have Christ’s mind, that we should be instructed by Him. Christ’s people have Christ’s thinking. They receive the spirit that is from God, that they might know the things of God, directly taught by his holy spirit — “not in words which man’s wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches.”

Then in chapter 3, Paul again spoke of following Paul or Apollos, and again warned against the wisdom of the world — which is what denominationalism is — and warned against boasting in men.

1 Co 3, WEB
(18) Let no one deceive himself. If anyone thinks that he is wise among you in this world, let him become a fool, that he may become wise.
(19) For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, “He has taken the wise in their craftiness.”
(20) And again, “The Lord knows the reasoning of the wise, that it is worthless.”
(21) Therefore let no one boast in men. For all things are yours,
(22) whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come. All are yours,
(23) and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.

When Paul spoke of the wisdom of the world versus being taught by the wisdom of God, and having the mind of Christ versus boasting in men —

He is still talking about not following Paul, Peter or Apollos — not dividing into denominations. “Let no one boast in men,” — meaning, don’t be part of a human denomination.

And when Paul said If anyone thinks that he is wise among you in this world, let him become a fool, that he may become wise, the apostle was referring to those people who wanted to be the denominational leaders in their new church.

In fact, in the whole first three chapters of this letter Paul talks about not following men, not having the wisdom of the world, and not boasting. Dividing up into groups of Paul or Peter — denominations — is the wisdom of men, that leads to following men instead of following Christ directly.

Remember when Israel wanted a king to stand between them and God?

Before King Saul was appointed, judges taught God’s law, and the people were ruled directly by Yahweh God according to that law. But the people didn’t want that. They wanted to be like all the other nations — because they thought like all the other people. To be ruled by a human king is the wisdom of the world.

Having denominations is the same thinking as Israel wanting King Saul, because it sets up a visible human government between the people and God, a government you can see, hear and boast about. That is the wisdom of the world, being like all the other nations.

Finally, in chapter 4, Paul again warned of denominational boasting.

1 Co 4, WEB
(6) Now these things, brothers, I have in a figure transferred to myself and Apollos for your sakes, that in us you might learn not to think beyond the things which are written, that none of you be puffed up against one another.
(7) For who makes you different? And what do you have that you didn’t receive? But if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?

In the very same way that Israel wanted a king, people want a visible denomination to stand between them and Christ. And even though it’s done by Christians like the Corinthians, that is boasting — ‘I’m in the true church!’

So the earliest Christianos did not have cathedrals and they did not have denominations. When Christ said, “I will build my church,” and when he added daily to the ‘church,’ he was not talking about a denomination, because they didn’t have denominations. There is no one true denomination because, in just being a denomination, every denomination contradicts the Bible.

Well, then, how in the world did the Christianos get anything done? How can people do the work of God without denominational governments of men controlling them? And if the true church that Christ built is not a denomination, then what is it?

Endnotes:
[1] http://www.thefreedictionary.com/denomination, 7/6/2017
[2] https://relevantmagazine.com/god/church/why-we-need-denominations

Chapter 30 – Rejecting the King Again

Posted on July 27, 2017 by danlwhite

The End Time Church: From the Cathedrals to the Catacombs

By Dan L. White

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB) which is in the public domain.

Chapter 30

Rejecting the King Again

Each and every time they heard his name, or even thought of his name, they condemned themselves.

The Jews had captured the man who had given the blind their sight, the lame their feet, the dumb their tongues and the dead their lives. Those are pretty good signs that God was working with that man, for anyone who really wanted to see. Moreover that man’s name was —

Yahweh’s Salvation.

Since Aramaic or Hebrew is not our language, when we hear the name Yeshua or Jesus, we hear it as a name but not as a statement. That name is a statement.

We recall other Bible names that made a statement. Moses is ‘drawn out;’ he was pulled out of the Nile River as a baby. Abraham is father of a multitude; he was promised that, when he had no children at all. The name Yahweh itself means self existent one, the source and sustainer of life — “I AM!”

The name Yeshua is also a statement. That was a common name, the same as the successor to Moses who led Israel into the Promised Land, and the same as the first high priest back in the Promised Land after Judah’s captivity in Babylon. They were both rendered as ‘Joshua’ in the King James translation, when the ‘J’ originally had a ‘Y’ sound. So Yeshua, although a common name, was an auspicious one.

Particularly when accompanied by incomparable miracles from God.

Therefore each and every time the Jews heard or thought of his name, they condemned themselves —

Yahweh’s Salvation.

The chief priests did not do the dirty work of going out to capture Yeshua themselves. They sent their slaves and Roman soldiers to do that. Apparently those men enjoyed their dirty work.

Luke 22
63) The men who held Yeshua mocked him and beat him.
64) Having blindfolded him, they struck him on the face and asked him, “Prophesy! Who is the one who struck you?”
65) They spoke many other things against him, insulting him.
66) As soon as it was day, the assembly of the elders of the people was gathered together, both chief priests and scribes, and they led him away into their council,…

Some of those who did the beating were Roman soldiers, who couldn’t have cared less whether Yeshua supposedly broke Jewish law. But they beat him, anyway.

Joh 18
12) So the detachment, the commanding officer, and the officers of the Jews, seized Yeshua and bound him,

The Greek word translated there as ‘detachment,’ and in the old King James as ‘band,’ is defined as a sizable Roman military group.

Mickelson’s Enhanced Strong’s Dictionaries of the Greek and Hebrew Testaments, G4686, a battalion of soldiers (ranging from a large squadron to an entire Roman military cohort, whether as a representative portion of a garrison or the whole of it; 150-500 soldiers).

In later centuries the Roman church, as part of the Roman Empire, made loud noises about the Jews being Christ killers. Guess what? The Romans were in it just as much as the Jews. This whole ignominious episode is a collusion not only between the Sadducees and Pharisees, but also between the Jews and Romans. The Jews said Yeshua broke their laws. The Romans? Well, apparently they just liked to beat up on people.

So after the Romans and Jews had beaten on this innocent man, they–

Joh 18
13) …led him to Annas first, for he was father-in-law to Caiaphas, who was high priest that year.
14) Now it was Caiaphas who advised the Jews that it was expedient that one man should perish for the people.
15) Simon Peter followed Yeshua, as did another disciple. Now that disciple was known to the high priest, and entered in with Yeshua into the court of the high priest;

Annas knew John, so the people in charge let John, along with Peter, into Annas’ quarters. This is what those two disciples then heard and saw.

Joh 18
19) The high priest [Annas] therefore asked Yeshua about his disciples, and about his teaching.
20) Yeshua answered him, “I spoke openly to the world. I always taught in synagogues, and in the temple, where the Jews always meet. I said nothing in secret.
21) Why do you ask me? Ask those who have heard me what I said to them. Behold, these know the things which I said.”
22) When he had said this, one of the officers standing by slapped Yeshua with his hand, saying, “Do you answer the high priest like that?”
23) Yeshua answered him, “If I have spoken evil, testify of the evil; but if well, why do you beat me?”

Again, Annas was not serving as high priest at this time and hadn’t for about fifteen years. When we heard former Attorney General John Ashcroft give a seminar about hymns, he was introduced as Attorney General Ashcroft, referring to his previous position. Also, former governors are often introduced as “Governor,” when they no longer hold the office. In the same way, after Annas was removed as high priest, he still had the respect of having held the position, even though his daughter’s husband Caiaphas was the current high priest.

Joh 18
24) Annas sent him bound to Caiaphas, the high priest.

Caiaphas’ house was the geographic center of this Passover plot. Earlier the conspirators had gathered there to plan their crime.

Matt 26
2) “You know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified.”
3) Then the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders of the people were gathered together in the court of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas.
4) They took counsel together that they might take Yeshua by deceit, and kill him.

Once they had captured the miracle worker, they took him to Caiaphas’ house.

Matt 26
57) Those who had taken Yeshua led him away to Caiaphas the high priest, where the scribes and the elders were gathered together.
58) But Peter followed him from a distance, to the court of the high priest, and entered in and sat with the officers, to see the end.
59) Now the chief priests, the elders, and the whole council sought false testimony against Yeshua, that they might put him to death;
60) and they found none. Even though many false witnesses came forward, they found none. But at last two false witnesses came forward,
61) and said, “This man said, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it in three days.’”

Whatever the first false witnesses said was so outlandish that not even the scurrilous Jews could accept it. But what was so terrible about Yeshua saying that he could rebuild the temple in three days, even if referring to the building instead of just his own body? Why is that a crime?

Matt 26
62) The high priest stood up, and said to him, “Have you no answer? What is this that these testify against you?”
63) But Yeshua held his peace…

American law provides that no man can be forced to testify against himself. He can simply hold his peace, as Yeshua did. So Caiaphas quickly got to the point.

Matt 26
63) The high priest answered him, “I adjure you by the living God, that you tell us whether you are the Christ, the Son of God.”

Remember that Christ means Messiah, the prophet that Moses referred to, whom the Jews had awaited for centuries, and that they still look for today. When Caiaphas asked that question, Christ indicated that he had hit the nail on the head. “You said it!”

Matt 26
64) Yeshua said to him, “You have said it. Nevertheless, I tell you, after this you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming on the clouds of the sky.”
65) Then the high priest tore his clothing, saying, “He has spoken blasphemy! Why do we need any more witnesses? Behold, now you have heard his blasphemy.
66) What do you think?” They answered, “He is worthy of death!”
67) Then they spit in his face and beat him with their fists, and some slapped him,
68) saying, “Prophesy to us, you Christ! Who hit you?”

Those were probably Jews and not Romans doing the spitting and beating there. And in the midst of all that, Malchus’ ear was still being heard from.

Joh 18
25) Now Simon Peter was standing and warming himself. They said therefore to him, “You aren’t also one of his disciples, are you?” He denied it, and said, “I am not.”
26) One of the servants of the high priest, being a relative of him whose ear Peter had cut off, said, “Didn’t I see you in the garden with him?”
27) Peter therefore denied it again, and immediately the rooster crowed.

Then he who was born King of the Jews was sent from the religious rulers, the priests and rabbis, to the political rulers, the Roman appointed governors in Judea and Galilee, who were Pilate and Herod Antipas.

John 18
28) They led Yeshua therefore from Caiaphas into the Praetorium. It was early, and they themselves didn’t enter into the Praetorium, that they might not be defiled, but might eat the Passover.

When the soldiers led the King of the Jews into the Praetorium or judgment hall of Pontius Pilate, Rome’s governor of Judea, the rabbis and chief priests would not go in, because their traditions said that would make them unclean for the Passover. Yeshua was led into the Praetorium. He was the Lamb without spot, and He was definitely not unclean. So much for Jewish traditions.

Since the Jews would not go into the Praetorium, Pilate graciously went out to them.

John 18
29) Pilate therefore went out to them, and said, “What accusation do you bring against this man?”
30) They answered him, “If this man weren’t an evildoer, we wouldn’t have delivered him up to you.”
31) Pilate therefore said to them, “Take him yourselves, and judge him according to your law.” Therefore the Jews said to him, “It is not lawful for us to put anyone to death,”

Rome allowed the Jews to largely run their own affairs, as long as it didn’t conflict with Rome. In this case, that did not include putting someone to death, although a short time later the Jews were very quick to put Stephen to death. Here, though, the Jews had Rome carry out their death sentence.

John 18
32) that the word of Yeshua might be fulfilled, which he spoke, signifying by what kind of death he should die.

Meaning that the Gentiles would kill him.

Pilate asked Yeshua, “Are you the King of the Jews?”

John 18
33) Pilate therefore entered again into the Praetorium, called Yeshua, and said to him, “Are you the King of the Jews?”
34) Yeshua answered him, “Do you say this by yourself, or did others tell you about me?”
35) Pilate answered, “I’m not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests delivered you to me. What have you done?”
36) Yeshua answered, “My Kingdom is not of this world. If my Kingdom were of this world, then my servants would fight, that I wouldn’t be delivered to the Jews. But now my Kingdom is not from here.”
37) Pilate therefore said to him, “Are you a king then?” Yeshua answered, “You say that I am a king. For this reason I have been born, and for this reason I have come into the world, that I should testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.”

When Pilate repeated his question, “Are you a king then?” Yeshua affirmed that He was.

Remember that the wise men from the east were seeking “he who was born King of the Jews.” When asked if he was king of the Jews, Yeshua said “For this reason I have been born.”

The Jews were incensed that Yeshua claimed to be their king.

Luk 23
1) The whole company of them rose up and brought him before Pilate.
2) They began to accuse him, saying, “We found this man perverting the nation, forbidding paying taxes to Caesar, and saying that he himself is Christ, a king.”

The Jews said Yeshua was perverting the nation, was forbidding taxes and was saying that he is the Messiah, a king. At least the Caiaphas gang got one out of three right. Yeshua was not perverting the nation but brought peace and health. And not only did he not forbid taxes to Caesar, he paid them, even if the coin smelled a little fishy. However, Yeshua did say that he was the Messiah, the King.

Luk 23
3) Pilate asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” He answered him, “So you say.”

When Yeshua affirmed what Pilate asked, Pilate was not upset but the Jews were.

Luk 23
4) Pilate said to the chief priests and the multitudes, “I find no basis for a charge against this man.”
5) But they insisted, saying, “He stirs up the people, teaching throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee even to this place.”

Over and over this point is emphasized at that Passover —

Will the Jews accept Yeshua as their king?

This is repeating what happened in Samuel’s time, when Israel rejected Yahweh as their king — “they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me as the king over them,” 1 Samuel 8:7.

Rome had divided the Holy Land into two governing districts, Galilee under Herod and Judea under Pilate, both under Tiberius the Roman emperor. Those were the Jews’ kings. Now another came along, who was born king of the Jews. Which would the Jews prefer?

Luk 23
6) But when Pilate heard Galilee mentioned, he asked if the man was a Galilean.
7) When he found out that he was in Herod’s jurisdiction, he sent him to Herod, who was also in Jerusalem during those days.

This Herod was Herod Antipas, the son of Herod the Great, or Ingrate, who had killed Bethlehem’s boys and beautified the temple. Herod Antipas’ great claim to fame was that he had beheaded John the Baptizer, Yeshua’s cousin.

Matt 14
1) At that time, Herod the tetrarch heard the report concerning Yeshua,
2) and said to his servants, “This is John the Baptizer. He is risen from the dead. That is why these powers work in him.”
3) For Herod had laid hold of John, and bound him, and put him in prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife.
4) For John said to him, “It is not lawful for you to have her.”
5) When he would have put him to death, he feared the multitude, because they counted him as a prophet.
6) But when Herod’s birthday came, the daughter of Herodias danced among them and pleased Herod.
7) Whereupon he promised with an oath to give her whatever she should ask.
8) She, being prompted by her mother, said, “Give me here on a platter the head of John the Baptizer.”
9) The king was grieved, but for the sake of his oaths, and of those who sat at the table with him, he commanded it to be given,
10) and he sent and beheaded John in the prison.
11) His head was brought on a platter, and given to the young lady: and she brought it to her mother.
12) His disciples came, and took the body, and buried it; and they went and told Yeshua.
13) Now when Yeshua heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat, to a deserted place apart…

When Yeshua was in Galilee, he had called this Herod a fox.

Luke 13
31) On that same day, some Pharisees came, saying to him, “Get out of here, and go away, for Herod wants to kill you.”
32) He said to them, “Go and tell that fox, ‘Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I complete my mission.

And now Yeshua was on trial for his life, before the fox who had killed John.

Luk 23
8) Now when Herod saw Yeshua, he was exceedingly glad, for he had wanted to see him for a long time, because he had heard many things about him. He hoped to see some miracle done by him.

Herod Antipas wasn’t really concerned about the great spiritual matters of life. He was hoping to see Houdini.

Christ did not play Herod’s little game.

Luk 23
9) He questioned him with many words, but he gave no answers.
10) The chief priests and the scribes stood, vehemently accusing him.

Even though Herod hadn’t really wanted to kill John, he certainly seemed to enjoy persecuting this innocent man.

Luk 23
11) Herod with his soldiers humiliated him and mocked him. Dressing him in luxurious clothing, they sent him back to Pilate.
12) Herod and Pilate became friends with each other that very day, for before that they were enemies with each other.

What a strange way to begin a friendship! Both Herod and Pilate got the type of friend each deserved. The Jews also got the type of rulers they deserved.

When Herod sent Yeshua back to Pilate, he dressed him up like a king. Herod did it for a joke. Nevertheless, this king was clothed in clothes fit for a king.

Luk 23
13) Pilate called together the chief priests and the rulers and the people,
14) and said to them, “You brought this man to me as one that perverts the people, and see, I have examined him before you, and found no basis for a charge against this man concerning those things of which you accuse him.
15) Neither has Herod, for I sent you to him, and see, nothing worthy of death has been done by him.
16) I will therefore chastise him and release him.”

Then the Romans continued Herod’s mocking of this “king:”

John 19
1) So Pilate then took Yeshua, and flogged him.
2) The soldiers twisted thorns into a crown, and put it on his head, and dressed him in a purple garment.
3) They kept saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” and they kept slapping him.
4) Then Pilate went out again, and said to them, “Behold, I bring him out to you, that you may know that I find no basis for a charge against him.”
5) Yeshua therefore came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple garment. Pilate said to them, “Behold, the man!”
6) When therefore the chief priests and the officers saw him, they shouted, saying, “Crucify! Crucify!” Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves, and crucify him, for I find no basis for a charge against him.”
7) The Jews answered him, “We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God.”
8) When therefore Pilate heard this saying, he was more afraid.

Pilate was in a pickle.

He knew it was wrong to execute this man, said to be King of the Jews, possibly the Son of God. He knew the jealous Jews just wanted Yeshua out of the way. But as Roman governor, it was his job to keep those jealous Jews placated.

Pilate kept trying to pry himself out of his pickle.

Matt 27
15) Now at the feast the governor was accustomed to release to the multitude one prisoner, whom they desired.
16) They had then a notable prisoner, called Barabbas.
17) When therefore they were gathered together, Pilate said to them, “Whom do you want me to release to you? Barabbas, or Yeshua, who is called Christ?”
18) For he knew that because of envy they had delivered him up.

That was quite a question. Who goes free and who dies? The robber who took people’s stuff or the prophet who gave people health and life?

Matt 27
19) While he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent to him, saying, “Have nothing to do with that righteous man, for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him.”

Pilate’s wife had received a warning directly from God about “that righteous man.” Then she passed that warning on to Pilate. Pilate’s pickle got pricklier.

Matt 27
20) Now the chief priests and the elders persuaded the multitudes to ask for Barabbas, and destroy Yeshua.

The multitude now faced their conflict – true church or true religion?

Earlier the multitudes had shouted “Hosanna!” as Yeshua entered the city. What did the multitudes shout now?

Matt 27
21) But the governor answered them, “Which of the two do you want me to release to you?” They said, “Barabbas!”
22) Pilate said to them, “What then shall I do to Yeshua, who is called Christ?” They all said to him, “Let him be crucified!”
23) But the governor said, “Why? What evil has he done?” But they cried out exceedingly, saying, “Let him be crucified!”

Three times Pilate asked them to release Yeshua.

Luke 23
20) Then Pilate spoke to them again, wanting to release Yeshua,
21) but they shouted, saying, “Crucify! Crucify him!”
22) He said to them the third time, “Why? What evil has this man done? I have found no capital crime in him. I will therefore chastise him and release him.”

In the Bible, three is the number of finality. The world was repopulated through the three sons of Noah — Shem, Ham and Japheth; God’s nation began with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; three kings reigned over united Israel, Saul, David and Solomon; and Peter denied Christ three times. So three times Pilate asked the Jews if he should release Yeshua. Three times the crowd refused.

Luke 23
23) But they were urgent with loud voices, asking that he might be crucified. Their voices and the voices of the chief priests prevailed.

The multitudes had faced a conflict — true church or true religion. And when the multitudes faced the choice of organized religion or real religion, organized religion won. The chief priests, Annas and Caiaphas, prevailed. After all, they were the true church.

Pilate and the Roman soldiers also faced their conflict. What they were being asked to do was wrong. Would they stand up for what was right or would they just go along with the Roman policy of keeping things under control? After all, right was whatever Rome said. Rome was right because Rome was Rome.

Pilate tried to slip out of his pickle. He went through a symbolic routine to excuse doing what he knew was wrong. When Pilate and the soldiers had to choose between the true church, the Roman government; or true religion, the righteous Son of God; Rome won. Religious symbolism, after all, is just for show. Pilate only got his hands wet. He then knowingly and willfully executed an innocent man, to protect Rome from a disturbance. Once again, the true church won out over true religion.

Matt 27
24) So when Pilate saw that nothing was being gained, but rather that a disturbance was starting, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, “I am innocent of the blood of this righteous person. You see to it.”
25) All the people answered, “May his blood be on us, and on our children!”

“May his blood be on us and on our children,” the Jews said.

As Christ had replied to Pilate, “So you say.”

Matt 27
26) Then he released to them Barabbas, but Yeshua he flogged and delivered to be crucified.

As Peter told them a couple of months later —

Acts 3
13) The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his Servant Yeshua, whom you delivered up, and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had determined to release him.
14) But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you,

Barabbas had quite a resumé. He was much more than a small time robber.

Luke 23
17) Now he had to release one prisoner to them at the feast.
18) But they all cried out together, saying, “Away with this man! Release to us Barabbas!”—
19) one who was thrown into prison for a certain revolt in the city, and for murder.

Bar Abba lived. Yeshua died. Barabbas, without the ‘s’ Greek grammatical ending, is Bar Abba, like Simon Bar Jonah (Matt. 16:17), which was Simon son of Jonah. The name Bar Abba means Son of the Father. This sinner of sinners lived and the savior of sinners died. The wicked son of the Father was saved by the sinless Son of the Father.

Bar Abba is me.

And you.

And them.

In Samuel’s time, Israel had demanded a human king instead of Yahweh God himself. Now the Jews re-emphasized who their king was.

John 19
12) At this, Pilate was seeking to release him, but the Jews cried out, saying, “If you release this man, you aren’t Caesar’s friend! Everyone who makes himself a king speaks against Caesar!”
13) When Pilate therefore heard these words, he brought Yeshua out, and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called “The Pavement,” but in Hebrew, “Gabbatha.”
14) Now it was the Preparation Day of the Passover, at about the sixth hour. He said to the Jews, “Behold, your King!”
15) They cried out, “Away with him! Away with him! Crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar!”

Forty years later, the Jews would severely regret having Caesar for their king when he tore down the temple, destroyed Jerusalem and butchered hundreds of thousands of Jews.

Luke 23
24) Pilate decreed that what they asked for should be done.
25) He released him who had been thrown into prison for insurrection and murder, for whom they asked, but he delivered Yeshua up to their will.
26) When they led him away, they grabbed one Simon of Cyrene, coming from the country, and laid on him the cross, to carry it after Yeshua.
27) A great multitude of the people followed him, including women who also mourned and lamented him.
28) But Yeshua, turning to them, said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, don’t weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.
29) For behold, the days are coming in which they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.’
30) Then they will begin to tell the mountains, ‘Fall on us!’ and tell the hills, ‘Cover us.’

To placate the Jews, Pilate and the Romans crucified a man they knew to be righteous, but Pilate did get in one last word.

John 19
16) So then he delivered him to them to be crucified. So they took Yeshua and led him away.
17) He went out, bearing his cross, to the place called “The Place of a Skull,” which is called in Hebrew, “Golgotha,”
18) where they crucified him, and with him two others, on either side one, and Yeshua in the middle.
19) Pilate wrote a title also, and put it on the cross. There was written, “Yeshua OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS.”
20) Therefore many of the Jews read this title, for the place where Yeshua was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, in Latin, and in Greek.
21) The chief priests of the Jews therefore said to Pilate, “Don’t write, ‘The King of the Jews,’ but, ‘he said, I am King of the Jews.’”
22) Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written.”

Greek was the language of world trade. Latin was the language of the Roman empire. Hebrew was the language of Israel. In whichever language they chose, the people read Yeshua, KING OF THE JEWS.

Luke 23
32) There were also others, two criminals, led with him to be put to death.
33) When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified him there with the criminals, one on the right and the other on the left.
35) The people stood watching. The rulers with them also scoffed at him, saying, “He saved others. Let him save himself, if this is the Christ of God, his chosen one!”
36) The soldiers also mocked him, coming to him and offering him vinegar,
37) and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!”
38) An inscription was also written over him in letters of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew: “THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.”
39) One of the criminals who was hanged insulted him, saying, “If you are the Christ, save yourself and us!”
40) But the other answered, and rebuking him said, “Don’t you even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation?
41) And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.”
42) He said to Yeshua, “Lord, remember me when you come into your Kingdom.”
43) Yeshua said to him, “Assuredly I tell you today you will be with me in Paradise.”
44) It was now about the sixth hour, and darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour.
45) The sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was torn in two.
46) Yeshua, crying with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” Having said this, he breathed his last.
47) When the centurion saw what was done, he glorified God, saying, “Certainly this was a righteous man.”
48) All the multitudes that came together to see this, when they saw the things that were done, returned home beating their breasts.

That was a mixed multitude. First they cried “Hosanna!” Next they shouted “Crucify him!” And when the Romans did crucify him, then the multitudes beat their chests in regret.

For about four hundred years, Israel was ruled directly by their spiritual King, Yahweh. In Samuel’s time, they rejected that king. After that, they had tall Saul, especially in his own eyes; then David, the best; and Solomon, the wisest except when it came to women.

When the kingdom split, Israel/Samaria had nineteen kings, all bad. Judah also had nineteen kings and awful Athaliah. Seven kings, Asa, Jehoshaphat, Amaziah, Jotham, Uzziah, Hezekiah and Josiah were customarily obedient. Joash was, then wasn’t. Manasseh wasn’t, then was. And all the others were just routinely rotten.

Both kingdoms were destroyed and much of their populations deported. Judah returned after seventy years, rebuilt the temple, but was never again ruled by the house of David. When the king, now of the family of David, came again to his people, they rejected him again.

John 1
9) The true light that enlightens everyone was coming into the world.
10) He was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world didn’t recognize him.
11) He came to his own, and those who were his own didn’t receive him.

To protect their kingly positions, King Saul tried to kill David, King Solomon tried to kill Jeroboam, and Emperor Augustus Caesar killed his competitors. But this King did none of that. And at His crucifixion, Jews and Romans ridiculed Christ because he did not save himself.

Luk 23
35) The people stood watching. The rulers with them also scoffed at him, saying, “He saved others. Let him save himself, if this is the Christ of God, his chosen one!”
36) The soldiers also mocked him, coming to him and offering him vinegar,
37) and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!”

39) One of the criminals who was hanged insulted him, saying, “If you are the Christ, save yourself and us!”

The religious rulers, the Roman soldiers and even the condemned criminals all challenged Yeshua to save himself.

But he did not live and die to save himself. He lived and died to save them, and you and me.

This King is perfectly unlike any other king and that difference is shown by one statement of His.

When the Jews mocked their King and condemned him to death, and when the Romans killed Him, who was also their King, not only did He not try to kill them, but this is what He asked God for them.

“Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.”

What a King!

Chapter 29 – The King Comes to Zion

Posted on July 9, 2017 by danlwhite

The End Time Church: From the Cathedrals to the Catacombs

By Dan L. White

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB) which is in the public domain.

Chapter 29

The King Comes to Zion

The king rode in on a donkey.

Joh 12:14-18
(14) Yeshua, having found a young donkey, sat on it. As it is written,
(15) Don’t be afraid, daughter of Zion. Behold, your King comes, sitting on a donkey’s colt.(16) His disciples didn’t understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written about him, and that they had done these things to him.
(17) The multitude therefore that was with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb, and raised him from the dead, was testifying about it.
(18) For this cause also the multitude went and met him, because they heard that he had done this sign.

A whole multitude of people, including the Lazarus lookers, watched the king ride into Jerusalem on a donkey.

Kings didn’t normally ride on donkeys. A donkey is, after all, just a donkey. Donkeys were pack animals. Abraham hauled the wood for his offering on his donkey.

Gen 22
(3) Abraham rose early in the morning, and saddled his donkey; and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son. He split the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went to the place of which God had told him.
(4) On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place far off.
(5) Abraham said to his young men, Stay here with the donkey. The boy and I will go yonder. We will worship, and come back to you.
(6) Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son. He took in his hand the fire and the knife. They both went together.

Balaam rode on his donkey, which had an automatic braking system.

Num 22
21) Balaam rose up in the morning, and saddled his donkey, and went with the princes of Moab.
22) God’s anger burned because he went; and Yahweh’s angel placed himself in the way for an adversary against him. Now he was riding on his donkey, and his two servants were with him.
23) The donkey saw Yahweh’s angel standing in the way, with his sword drawn in his hand; and the donkey turned out of the path, and went into the field. Balaam struck the donkey, to turn her into the path.
24) Then Yahweh’s angel stood in a narrow path between the vineyards, a wall being on this side, and a wall on that side.
25) The donkey saw Yahweh’s angel, and she thrust herself to the wall, and crushed Balaam’s foot against the wall. He struck her again.
26) Yahweh’s angel went further, and stood in a narrow place, where there was no way to turn either to the right hand or to the left.
27) The donkey saw Yahweh’s angel, and she lay down under Balaam. Balaam’s anger burned, and he struck the donkey with his staff.
28) Yahweh opened the mouth of the donkey, and she said to Balaam, “What have I done to you, that you have struck me these three times?”
29) Balaam said to the donkey, “Because you have mocked me, I wish there were a sword in my hand, for now I would have killed you.”
30) The donkey said to Balaam, “Am I not your donkey, on which you have ridden all your life long until today? Was I ever in the habit of doing so to you?” He said, “No.”
31) Then Yahweh opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw Yahweh’s angel standing in the way, with his sword drawn in his hand; and he bowed his head, and fell on his face.

That’s what donkeys did. Well, they didn’t usually talk to their riders, but they just hauled people and stuff around. And in that example with Balaam, it’s obvious there was more than one donkey involved.

Kings rode on horses or mules. King David had a mule and when he had Solomon ride on his mule it showed that Solomon was the next king.

1Ki 1
(33) The king said to them, Take with you the servants of your lord, and cause Solomon my son to ride on my own mule, and bring him down to Gihon.
(34) Let Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anoint him there king over Israel. Blow the trumpet, and say, Long live king Solomon!
(35) Then come up after him, and he shall come and sit on my throne; for he shall be king in my place. I have appointed him to be prince over Israel and over Judah.

So when Solomon rode King David’s mule, that showed that Solomon was to be king. Again, it was a mule, not a donkey.

When kings formally enter a city, they don’t donkey around. It’s usually a very showy affair.

For example, Julius Caesar rode a four-horse chariot for his “triumph” entry into Rome. A ‘triumph’ was “a ritual procession that was the highest honour bestowed upon a victorious general in the ancient Roman Republic.” https://www.britannica.com/topic/triumph-ancient-Roman-honour

When Julius returned to Rome after a successful military campaign in Spain, he was granted a “triumph” parade.

Caesar’s triumph in Rome surpasses all others. It is spread over four days, variously depicting his victories in Gaul, Egypt, Asia Minor (accompanied by the triumphal slogan Veni, vidi, vici) and Africa. Each day’s procession begins with distinguished prisoners from the campaigns. Vercingetorix the Gaul is one of these. Immediately after his appearance he is taken aside and strangled, having now served his purpose.

Next comes Caesar at the head of his legions (singing cheeky songs about their bald general as they march), followed by the booty of the campaigns, wagon loads of gold. Each soldier is to have a share, according to rank. There is even a hand-out for every spectator lining the route.

As entertainment there are re-enactments of naval battles, a fight to the death between prisoners of war and criminals, an encounter between giraffes and lions. The final event of the triumph is a feast in the streets at 22,000 tables, after which Caesar is escorted to his house by elephants.
http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=aa44

That was Julius Caesar entering Rome, but he who was born King of the Jews rode into Jerusalem on a donkey.

Luke 19
28) Having said these things, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.
29) It happened, when he drew near to Bethsphage and Bethany, at the mountain that is called Olivet, he sent two of his disciples,
30) saying, “Go your way into the village on the other side, in which, as you enter, you will find a colt tied, whereon no man ever yet sat. Untie it, and bring it.
31) If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ say to him: ‘The Lord needs it.’”

As John brought out, that fulfilled this prophecy in Zechariah.

Zec 9
9) Rejoice greatly, daughter of Zion! Shout, daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King comes to you! He is righteous, and having salvation; lowly, and riding on a donkey, even on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

This wasn’t just a donkey; it was the foal of a donkey, and being just a foal, had never been ridden.

When an altar was built to Yahweh, it was to be built of uncut stones, free from people pollution.

Exo 20
25) If you make me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of cut stones; for if you lift up your tool on it, you have polluted it.

When Yahweh came down on Mt. Sinai, no one was to touch that mountain, and no one was to touch anyone who did touch that mountain, to avoid people pollution.

Exo 19
12) You shall set bounds to the people all around, saying, ‘Be careful that you don’t go up onto the mountain, or touch its border. Whoever touches the mountain shall be surely put to death.
13) No hand shall touch him, but he shall surely be stoned or shot through; whether it is animal or man, he shall not live.’ When the trumpet sounds long, they shall come up to the mountain.”

When Yeshua rode into Jerusalem, and the multitudes hailed him as King of the Jews, he rode on the virgin foal of a donkey that had never been ridden.

It had also never been taught to be ridden.

When the Philistines sent the Ark of the Covenant back to Israel, in Samuel’s time, the Ark cart was pulled not by trained oxen but by two milk cows that had never been taught to pull. Their calves were shut up at home, those mama cows were bursting to be with their young, yet in spite of their moos and moans, they kept on walking straight back to Israel.

Christ’s donkey foal was similar to those Philistine cows. It acted in a most unusual way.

Watching an equestrian ride an animal makes it appear effortless. In reality, horses, donkeys and mules do not naturally want to be ridden. In fact, before an animal can be taught to be ridden, it must first be taught just to stand still when held by a rope.

No, they don’t want to hold still, either.

All of that, to be still when held, to stay still when mounted, and to not buck when ridden has to be carefully taught to each and every animal. And generally the first time that such an animal is mounted, he does something violent to try to unmount the mounter.

But Yeshua, the King of the Jews, rode the foal of a donkey that had never been polluted by a human bottom. Like those Philistine milk cows, that young donkey behaved in a very unnatural manner. He didn’t buck, and in spite of being surrounded by hordes of scary, screaming people, he went right down the road where he was supposed to go.

Luk 19
32) Those who were sent went away, and found things just as he had told them.
33) As they were untying the colt, its owners said to them, “Why are you untying the colt?”
34) They said, “The Lord needs it.”
35) They brought it to Yeshua. They threw their cloaks on the colt, and set Yeshua on them.
36) As he went, they spread their cloaks in the way.
37) As he was now getting near, at the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works which they had seen,
38) saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest!”

Usually if you flap a piece of cloth in front of an equine, even a trained one, he will flap right back. But that crowd put their wraps on that young donkey, and threw them down in front of him, and he didn’t put up a flap at all.

When this multitude saw and heard about Lazarus, then they knew that this was the real deal. They knew that God used Yeshua to do and say great things and the whole multitude, a big boisterous crowd, yelled, “Blessed is the King.” He who was born King of the Jews was received as King of the Jews.

Mat 21
8) A very great multitude spread their clothes on the road. Others cut branches from the trees, and spread them on the road.
9) The multitudes who went before him, and who followed kept shouting, “Hosanna to the son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”
10) When he had come into Jerusalem, all the city was stirred up, saying, “Who is this?”
11) The multitudes said, “This is the prophet, Yeshua, from Nazareth of Galilee.”

Luk 19
39) Some of the Pharisees from the multitude said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!”
40) He answered them, “I tell you that if these were silent, the stones would cry out.”

What an auspicious occasion, leading up to the pivotal event in all human history. All the city of Jerusalem was stirred up and rang out with praise for the One who would give his life for them, although they didn’t know it. And when that humble Lamb meekly went to his own sacrifice, if the crowd hadn’t said “Hosanna!” — then God the Father would have had the rocks shout it out.

Christ gave that crowd a warning.

Luk 19
41) When he drew near, he saw the city and wept over it,
42) saying, “If you, even you, had known today the things which belong to your peace! But now, they are hidden from your eyes.
43) For the days will come on you, when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you, surround you, hem you in on every side,
44) and will dash you and your children within you to the ground. They will not leave in you one stone on another, because you didn’t know the time of your visitation.”

That visitation was to come forty years later. Israel had forty years in the wilderness, Nineveh had forty days to repent, and Judea had forty years to accept their king or to meet their fate for refusing him.

After his final entry into Jerusalem, Christ drove the religious merchants out of the temple.

Luk 19
45) He entered into the temple, and began to drive out those who bought and sold in it,
46) saying to them, “It is written, ‘My house is a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a ‘den of robbers’!”
47) He was teaching daily in the temple, but the chief priests and the scribes and the leading men among the people sought to destroy him.
48) They couldn’t find what they might do, for all the people hung on to every word that he said.

Of course, that temple trade was the basis of Annas’ and Caiaphas’ wealth. So their zeal against Christ wasn’t wholly selfless.

When the chief priests’ men went to capture Yeshua, they expected a battle.

John 18
1) When Yeshua had spoken these words, he went out with his disciples over the brook Kidron, where there was a garden, into which he and his disciples entered.
2) Now Judas, who betrayed him, also knew the place, for Yeshua often met there with his disciples.
3) Judas then, having taken a detachment of soldiers and officers from the chief priests and the Pharisees, came there with lanterns, torches, and weapons.

They came with weapons because they thought he was going to fight back. And Peter did fight back.

John 18
4) Yeshua therefore, knowing all the things that were happening to him, went forth, and said to them, “Who are you looking for?”
5) They answered him, “Yeshua of Nazareth.” Yeshua said to them, “I am he.” Judas also, who betrayed him, was standing with them.
6) When therefore he said to them, “I am he,” they went backward, and fell to the ground.
7) Again therefore he asked them, “Who are you looking for?” They said, “Yeshua of Nazareth.”
8) Yeshua answered, “I told you that I am he. If therefore you seek me, let these go their way,”
9) that the word might be fulfilled which he spoke, “Of those whom you have given me, I have lost none.”
10) Simon Peter therefore, having a sword, drew it, and struck the high priest’s servant, and cut off his right ear. The servant’s name was Malchus.
11) Yeshua therefore said to Peter, “Put the sword into its sheath. The cup which the Father has given me, shall I not surely drink it?”

Augustus got his kingdom by the sword but Yeshua got his kingdom by the spirit, not the sword. So he stuck Malchus’ ear back on.

Luk 22
50) A certain one of them struck the servant of the high priest, and cut off his right ear.
51) But Yeshua answered, Let me at least do this and he touched his ear, and healed him.

Malchus was a servant of the high priest Caiaphas, who was ordered by the high priest to do his dirty work. In doing that work, Malchus suddenly had his ear cut off.

Then he had it put back on.

Wonder what he thought about all that?

The Robe is a 1942 historical novel about the Crucifixion of Christ, one of the best-selling books of the 1940s, later made into a famous movie. It’s a made up story about a soldier who won Christ’s robe – The Robe. Somebody might write a similar book about Malchus and call it The Ear.

Luk 22
52) Yeshua said to the chief priests, captains of the temple, and elders, who had come against him, Have you come out as against a robber, with swords and clubs?
53) When I was with you in the temple daily, you didn’t stretch out your hands against me. But this is your hour, and the power of darkness.

Notice that the chief priests, the Sadducees, and the elders, the Pharisees, were the power of darkness. Appropriately, they operated at night. The Jewish religious leaders captured Yeshua at night because the Hosanna multitudes were not out in the darkness. Then, as morning broke, the religious forces led the Messiah first to the high priest emeritus, old man Annas.

John 18
12) So the detachment, the commanding officer, and the officers of the Jews, seized Yeshua and bound him,
13) and led him to Annas first, for he was father-in-law to Caiaphas, who was high priest that year.
14) Now it was Caiaphas who advised the Jews that it was expedient that one man should perish for the people.

Suddenly we have a tremendous conflict for all the multitude that had shouted Hosanna.

What conflict?

The True Church had arrested the True Prophet.

Although most people there did not know Yeshua was the Messiah, many did view him as a prophet through whom God worked. ‘There’s Lazarus standing right over there!’ But we also have to appreciate how the people viewed the chief priests and the synagogue rulers.

They were the True Church.

The rich young man discussed in Matthew, Mark and Luke was a religious ruler.

Luk 18
18) A certain ruler asked him, saying, Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?

He was most likely a synagogue ruler, part of the ministry of the true church, rich, perhaps because of his position. And when Christ said that the rich young ruler would hardly be in the Kingdom of God, the disciples were astonished.

Mar 10
23) Yeshua looked around, and said to his disciples, How difficult it is for those who have riches to enter into God’s Kingdom!
24) The disciples were amazed at his words. But Yeshua answered again, Children, how hard is it for those who trust in riches to enter into God’s Kingdom!
25) It is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye than for a rich man to enter into God’s Kingdom.
26) They were exceedingly astonished, saying to him, Then who can be saved?

How could a minister of the true church, graduate of God’s Bible college, and blessed ‘by God’ with great wealth not be in the Kingdom?

As already covered in another chapter, the religious authorities stood in the place of God for the people. God himself had set up the priesthood, even though the current high priests were Roman hirelings. Everyone regularly went to the synagogue, under the control of the Pharisees. The priests and the Pharisees were looked at as the channel to God.

But —

That religious authority had attacked the one who had the real fruits of God, as the blind man had said.

Joh 9
31) We know that God doesn’t listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God, and does his will, he listens to him.
32) Since the world began it has never been heard of that anyone opened the eyes of someone born blind.
33) If this man were not from God, he could do nothing,…

In all those five centuries that the Jews had been back in the Promised Land, this was the first prophet to do miracles. Moreover, no one had ever done miracles like these.

Joh 9
33) Yeshua answered them, Go and tell John the things which you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them.

Again, this was an incredible conflict for the multitudes. The True Church had arrested the True Prophet!

Those who had never healed anyone, never raised the dead back to life, never done any miracle at all but who were the established religious authorities had attacked the one — the only one — who had ever done all those. What were the people to think? Should they go by fruits or should they go by the authority of the established religion?

Others have faced a similar conflict, with this thinking.

“Long ago I proved that this was the true church.”

“How did you prove that?”

“Because the true church obeys the commandments of God.”

“When the true church tells to you to break the commandments of God, then what do you do?”

“I break them.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s the true church.”

Over the centuries, many in the Roman Catholic Church repeatedly faced that dilemma, when their true church tortured and murdered many good Christians.

Not only did the Jews face a great conflict when the True Church opposed the True Prophet, the Roman soldiers also faced a quandary.

Rome was the soldiers’ political authority but Rome was also their religious authority. Rome purposely combined politics and religion. Religion was just a political tool. If a religion did not support the government, then the government would try to destroy that religion.

For the soldiers, Rome, the emperor and his government and religious trappings, was the true church. Yet here was Yeshua taken captive like a criminal, and nobody could say what he had done wrong. Everyone had heard how he had healed the blind, made the lame walk and raised the dead. Those soldiers had probably even heard about Malchus’ ear. You’d have to be deaf not to hear about that.

So what were the soldiers to do? Should they go by the established religious authority that everybody went by and that they had always gone by, or go by incredibly good, never before seen fruits that had to be from God?

All the multitude who hailed the king when he rode in on a donkey and all the soldiers sent to take this king suddenly had to choose —

What do you do when the True Church goes against true fruits, when established religion goes against true religion?

Chapter 28 – The High Priest’s Sacrifice

Posted on June 30, 2017 by danlwhite

The End Time Church: From the Cathedrals to the Catacombs

By Dan L. White

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB) which is in the public domain.

Chapter 28

The High Priest’s Sacrifice

When Athaliah tried to kill all the royal descendants of David, she was trying to kill the Messiah, who came from the royal line of David.

When Haman tried to kill all the Jews, he was trying to kill the Messiah, who came from the Jews.

When Herod killed the baby boys around Bethlehem, he was trying to kill the Messiah.

Seems like there’s a conspiracy there, even though Athaliah and Haman may not have known exactly what they were doing, although Herod did.

All those people were acting in their own selfish interests, yet they were also acting in the interest of the most selfish being in the universe. And when that being, Satan the devil, tried to deceive Christ at the great temptation in Matthew 4, he was trying to destroy the Messiah. If Yeshua had accepted Satan’s offer to turn the rock into bread to
how off, or to jump off the temple to show off, or to accept the kingdoms of the world to show off, Satan would have knocked off the Messiah.

The Jewish religious rulers were children of the devil. The Messiah said so. So it was only to be expected that they would do the work of the devil — to kill the Messiah.

On the other hand, the nations of the world, like Rome, had long ago — soon after the Flood — forsaken God. Their works were just as evil as the Jews. Christ repeatedly spoke of his battle against the prince of this world.

John 12
31) Now is the judgment of this world. Now the prince of this world will be cast out.

John 14
30) I will no more speak much with you, for the prince of the world comes, and he has nothing in me.

John 16
11) …the prince of this world has been judged.

Rome and the Gentiles followed the prince of this world. As always, the prince of this world wanted to kill the Messiah, the Savior of the world, and he used Rome, the empire of the world, to do it.

The disciples understood that Yeshua was the Messiah, the promised prophet, the prophesied anointed one.

Matt 16
11) How is it that you don’t perceive that I didn’t speak to you concerning bread? But beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”
12) Then they understood that he didn’t tell them to beware of the yeast of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.
13) Now when Yeshua came into the parts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, “Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?”
14) They said, “Some say John the Baptizer, some, Elijah, and others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.”
15) He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”
16) Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ [Messiah, Anointed One], the Son of the living God.”
17) Yeshua answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.

The Jews, supposedly looking for the Messiah, were the ones who actually condemned him to death.

Matt 16
20) Then he commanded the disciples that they should tell no one that he was Yeshua the Christ.
21) From that time, Yeshua began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and the third day be raised up.

Matt 20
17) As Yeshua was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside, and on the way he said to them,
18) “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death,
19) and will hand him over to the Gentiles to mock, to scourge, and to crucify; and the third day he will be raised up.”

So the religious leaders of the Jews, the elders, chief priests and scribes, would condemn Christ to death, then the Gentiles would carry that out. All were guilty.

When Christ raised Lazarus from the dead, that naturally attracted a lot of attention.

John 11
41) So they took away the stone from the place where the dead man was lying. Yeshua lifted up his eyes, and said, “Father, I thank you that you listened to me.
42) I know that you always listen to me, but because of the multitude that stands around I said this, that they may believe that you sent me.”
43) When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”
44) He who was dead came out, bound hand and foot with wrappings, and his face was wrapped around with a cloth. Yeshua said to them, “Free him, and let him go.”
45) Therefore many of the Jews, who came to Mary and saw what Yeshua did, believed in him.

Although many of those people who saw that miracle then believed in Yeshua, others reported what he had done to the religious authorities, to check and see if giving a guy his life back was okay with them.

John 11
46) But some of them went away to the Pharisees, and told them the things which Yeshua had done.

Nope. It wasn’t OK with the religious authorities.

John 11
47) The chief priests therefore and the Pharisees gathered a council, and said, “What are we doing? For this man does many signs.
48) If we leave him alone like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.”

Note that the chief priests, who were the Sadducees, and the Pharisees, who were the synagogue rulers, constantly battled with each other over religious supremacy. However, they were willing to ignore their ongoing struggle to join forces when faced with this great problem.

What was the enormous crisis that Israel faced?

Yeshua was healing deformed hands, giving blind people their sight and bringing the dead back to life.

‘Oh, no! Catastrophe and calamity! What are we going to do?’

The chief priests and Pharisees did not deny the miracles. “This man does many signs!” Lazarus was still walking around there somewhere. Hard to deny that! ‘Hey, how you doin’, Laz?’

But just as Pharaoh had done, when the Jews saw those miracles that had to be from God, they hardened their hearts against him. They did not deny the miracles. They just denied the one who was doing the miracles. As Nicodemus had said, “no one can do these signs that you do, unless God is with him,” John 3:2. They were denying God himself.

Once they denied God, then he let this happen.

Rom 1
21) Because, knowing God, they didn’t glorify him as God, neither gave thanks, but became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless heart was darkened.
22) Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools…

They slipped into the darkness of denial, the self deception of those who want to be deceived.

Their human minds reasoned that the miracles would move the multitudes to some kind of disturbance. It was up to the religious rulers — them — to keep the masses under control. That’s what religious rulers like to do — peace, conformity, unity in the body! A disturbance might cause Rome to remove the religious rulers.

So because of the miracles from God done by the Son of God, the rabbis and priests thought they faced a crisis. Rome might even take away their nation!

Wait —

They didn’t have a nation!

Not an independent nation. They were only a smidgen in the great Roman Empire. But they feared that Rome might take away their position and their nation.

It did not occur to them to look to God to save their nation. They had to try to do that themselves. And to save their ‘nation,’ they had to condemn one man to death — that guy who was doing all the miracles.

What they did — the Sadducees and Pharisees, those bitter rivals who joined forces to face this great crisis — What they did they did to save their nation, Adolf Hitler did to save his.

The Jews condemned Yeshua to death to save their nation.

Hitler condemned the Jews to death to save his nation.

In Hitler’s mind, the Holocaust was to save the German nation and culture from the crisis of Jewish domination.

Hitler rallied the Germans by saying he would save the German culture from the Jews, as one historian discussed.

In Mein Kampf Hitler argued that the German (he wrongly described them as the Aryan race) was superior to all others. He went on to say that Aryan superiority was being threatened particularly by the Jewish race who, he argued, were lazy and had contributed little to world civilization. (Hitler ignored the fact that some of his favourite composers and musicians were Jewish). He claimed that the “Jewish youth lies in wait for hours on end satanically glaring at and spying on the unconscious girl whom he plans to seduce, adulterating her blood with the ultimate idea of bastardizing the white race which they hate and thus lowering its cultural and political level so that the Jew might dominate.”

According to Adolf Hitler, Jews were responsible for everything he did not like, including modern art, pornography and prostitution. Hitler also alleged that the Jews had been responsible for losing the First World War. Hitler also claimed that Jews, who were only about 1% of the population, were slowly taking over the country. They were doing this by controlling the largest political party in Germany, the German Social Democrat Party, many of the leading companies and several of the country’s newspapers. The fact that Jews had achieved prominent positions in a democratic society was, according to Hitler, an argument against democracy: “a hundred blockheads do not equal one man in wisdom.”

Hitler believed that the Jews were involved with Communists in a joint conspiracy to take over the world. Like Henry Ford, Hitler claimed that 75% of all Communists were Jews. Hitler argued that the combination of Jews and Marxists had already been successful in Russia and now threatened the rest of Europe.
http://spartacus-educational.com/GERjews.htm

In The Jewish Question speech, delivered before the Reichstag (the German powerless parliament) in Berlin, Germany – January 30, 1939, Hitler spoke of the common enemy.

One thing I should like to say on this day, which may be memorable for others as well as for us Germans: In the course of my life I have very often been a prophet and have usually been ridiculed for it. During the time of my struggle for power, it was in the first instance the Jewish race that only received my prophecies with laughter when I said that I would one day take over the leadership of the State and with it that of the whole nation and that I would then, among many other things, settle the Jewish problem. Their laughter was uproarious, but I think that for some time now they have been laughing on the other side of their face.

Today I will once more be a prophet. [You notice that Hitler was not humble.] If the international Jewish financiers in and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, then the result will not be the bolshevization of the earth, and this the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe! For the time when the non-Jewish nations had no propaganda is at an end. National Socialist Germany and fascist Italy have institutions that enable them when necessary to enlighten the world about the nature of a question of which many nations are instinctively conscious, but which they have not yet clearly thought out. At the moment Jews in certain countries may be fomenting hatred under the protection of a press, of the film, of wireless propaganda, of the theater, of literature, etc., all of which they control. […]”

The nations are no longer willing to die on the battlefield that this unstable international race may profiteer from a war or satisfy its Old Testament vengeance. The Jewish watchword, ‘Workers of the world, unite!’ will be conquered by a higher realization, namely, ‘Workers of all classes and of all nations, recognize your common enemy!’ http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/holoprelude/jewishquestion.html

For Hitler, that common enemy was the Jews.

Again — just as the Jews tried to save their nation by condemning one man to death, so Hitler tried to save his nation by condemning one people to death.

Caiaphas, the high priest, the highest religious position, was the one who came up with the idea to condemn Yeshua to death. Reading John 11 again —

John 11
49) But a certain one of them, Caiaphas, being high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all,
50) nor do you consider that it is advantageous for us that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation not perish.”
51) Now he didn’t say this of himself, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Yeshua would die for the nation,
52) and not for the nation only, but that he might also gather together into one the children of God who are scattered abroad.
53) So from that day forward they took counsel that they might put him to death.
54) Yeshua therefore walked no more openly among the Jews, but departed from there into the country near the wilderness, to a city called Ephraim. He stayed there with his disciples.

Caiaphas was speaking, rather arrogantly, not only to those Jewish religious rabbis who denied Yeshua, but also to those Jewish religious rabbis who did believe in Yeshua.

Joh 12
42) Nevertheless even many of the rulers believed in him, but because of the Pharisees they didn’t confess it, so that they wouldn’t be put out of the synagogue,
43) for they loved men’s praise more than God’s praise.

So when Caiaphas made his decree of condemnation, he was talking to Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea and others who were trying to straddle the spiritual fence. Some did vote against Yeshua’s death decree but none stood up enough to be thrown out of the synagogue.

The three high priests who served right before Caiaphas had only lasted a year each. By 30 CE, Caiaphas had already been in office for about a dozen years, even longer than Annas had served. So when Caiaphas spoke of not offending Rome, he knew what he was talking about. He was good at that.

The Annas family members were the religious aristocracy in Jerusalem, the family of high priests.

Act 4
1) As they spoke to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came to them,
2) being upset because they taught the people and proclaimed in Yeshua the resurrection from the dead.
3) They laid hands on them, and put them in custody until the next day, for it was now evening.
4) But many of those who heard the word believed, and the number of the men came to be about five thousand.
5) In the morning, their rulers, elders, and scribes were gathered together in Jerusalem.
6) Annas the high priest was there, with Caiaphas, John, Alexander, and as many as were relatives of the high priest.

In that passage, although Caiaphas was the official high priest, Annas was called high priest as if he still presided. Since he was the head of the family, he was looked to as the religious head.

The relatives of the high priest included five sons who became high priests themselves. With Annas and son-in-law Caiaphas, that was a total of seven men in that family who served as high priests. Caiaphas served the longest.

Ananus ben Seth (6-15 CE), father of the clan;
Eleazar ben Ananus (16-17), son;
Joseph Caiaphas (18-36), married Annas’ daughter;
Jonathan ben Ananus (36-37), son;
Theophilus ben Ananus (37-41), son;
Matthias ben Ananus (43), son;
Jonathan ben Ananus (44), son who was high priest after Annas died.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/high-priests-of-the-second-temple-period

The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia article on ‘Annas’ explains that infamous family.

ISBE, Annas

A high priest of the Jews, the virtual head of the priestly party in Jerusalem in the time of Christ, a man of commanding influence. He was the son of Seth (Josephus: Sethi), and was elevated to the high-priesthood by Quirinius, governor of Syria, 7 ad. At this period the office was filled and vacated at the caprice of the Roman procurators, and Annas was deposed by Valerius Gratus, 15 ad. But though deprived of official status, he continued to wield great power as the dominant member of the hierarchy, using members of his family as his willing instruments. That he was an adroit diplomatist is shown by the fact that five of his sons and his son-in-law Caiaphas held the high-priesthood in almost unbroken succession, though he did not survive to see the office filled by his fifth son Annas or Ananus II, who caused Jas the Lord’s brother to be stoned to death (circa 62 ad). Another mark of his continued influence is, that long after he had lost his office he was still called high priest, and his name appears first wherever the names of the chief members of the sacerdotal faction are given.

Annas’ family members were given their positions by Rome and were subject to being displaced by Rome at any time. But while they were in power, they used it.

He and his family were proverbial for their rapacity and greed. The chief source of their wealth seems to have been the sale of requisites for the temple sacrifices, such as sheep, doves, wine and oil, which they carried on in the four famous booths of the sons of Annas on the Mount of Olives, with a branch within the precincts of the temple itself. During the great feasts, they were able to extort high monopoly prices for theft goods. Hence, our Lord’s strong denunciation of those who made the house of prayer a den of robbers (Mar_11:15-19), and the curse in the Talmud, Woe to the family of Annas! Woe to the serpent-like hisses (Pes 57a).

Proverbial for their rapacity and greed! They had a monopoly on the temple trade. Even the Talmud said, “Woe to the family of Annas!”

Annas had great influence among the Jews because he was high priest emeritus and head of the clan, but Caiaphas was the one who actually held the position of high priest at Christ’s trial. And this was his decree, to save the Jews and himself from Rome: “it is advantageous for us that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation not perish.”

Acting as high priest, Caiaphas’ words were like a papal bull.

Bullinger’s Companion Bible, John 11:51
The Jews regarded any ex cathedra utterance of the High Priest as inspired.

‘Ex cathedra’ in Latin is ‘from the teacher’s seat,’ and the phrase means “with the full authority of office,” according to Oxford Dictionaries.

When Caiaphas said, ex cathedra, “one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation not perish,” his utterance was inspired —

Much more than he knew.

This Yeshua, who claimed to be a king and who some even thought was the prophesied Messiah, might cause an insurrection against Rome, the rabbis thought. By killing him, a king who could challenge Caesar, the Jewish religious leaders could show their allegiance to Rome and further enhance their own position. For all their study of the scriptures and discussions about the law of God, their religion was really controlled by Rome.

And when Caiaphas made his ex cathedra death decree, acting in the spirit of Satan, he paved the way for salvation for those who overcome the selfish spirit of Satan and of themselves.

Caiaphas thought he was being so clever in saving the Jews’ nation and the rabbis’ position in the Roman Empire. His condemnation did save the nation — the nation of true Israel, all who would be children of God instead of children of the devil.

John 11
51) Now he didn’t say this of himself, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Yeshua would die for the nation,
52) and not for the nation only, but that he might also gather together into one the children of God who are scattered abroad.

Caiaphas’ decree fit with these prophecies.

Isa 49
5) Now Yahweh says, he who formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob again to him, and to gather Israel to him, for I am honorable in Yahweh’s eyes, and my God has become my strength.
6) Indeed, he says, “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel? I will also give you as a light to the nations, that you may be my salvation to the end of the earth.”

Rev 5
8) Now when he had taken the book, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each one having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.
9) They sang a new song, saying, “You are worthy to take the book, and to open its seals: for you were killed, and bought us for God with your blood, out of every tribe, language, people, and nation,

Caiaphas decree did save his nation and people from every nation — so that with his death, the Messiah might gather together the children of God. Way to go, Caiaphas!

Moreover, just as Augustus and Herod, kings of this world, paved the way for their ultimate replacement by the King of Kings, so this high priest Caiaphas, by his arrogant, cruel declaration, pointed the way for his ultimate eternal replacement.

Heb 9
1) Now indeed even the first covenant had ordinances of divine service, and an earthly sanctuary.
2) For a tabernacle was prepared. In the first part were the lampstand, the table, and the show bread; which is called the Holy Place.
3) After the second veil was the tabernacle which is called the Holy of Holies,
4) having a golden altar of incense, and the ark of the covenant overlaid on all sides with gold, in which was a golden pot holding the manna, Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tablets of the covenant;
5) and above it cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat, of which things we can’t speak now in detail.
6) Now these things having been thus prepared, the priests go in continually into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the services,
7) but into the second the high priest alone, once in the year, not without blood, which he offers for himself, and for the errors of the people.
8) The Holy Spirit is indicating this, that the way into the Holy Place wasn’t yet revealed while the first tabernacle was still standing;
9) which is a symbol of the present age, where gifts and sacrifices are offered that are incapable, concerning the conscience, of making the worshipper perfect;
10) being only (with meats and drinks and various washings) fleshly ordinances, imposed until a time of reformation.

24) For Christ hasn’t entered into holy places made with hands, which are representations of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us;
25) nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest enters into the holy place year by year with blood not his own,
26) or else he must have suffered often since the foundation of the world. But now once at the end of the ages, he has been revealed to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.
27) Inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once, and after this, judgment,
28) so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, without sin, to those who are eagerly waiting for him for salvation.

Augustus had issued an enrollment decree to get money for his empire, and in so doing caused Yeshua to be born in Bethlehem instead of Nazareth.

Herod had improved the temple to win approval from the Jews and in so doing beautified it for the coming of the Messiah.

Caiaphas was the high priest who went into the Holy of Holies on Atonement to offer a sacrifice before the mercy seat throne of Yahweh, and he, as high priest, was the one who actually condemned the Lamb of God to be sacrificed. That Lamb then became an eternal high priest, and He went into the Holy of Holies before the mercy seat throne of the Father for us.

Isn’t it clever how God works these things out?

Psa 2
(1) Why do the nations rage, and the peoples plot a vain thing?
(2) The kings of the earth take a stand, and the rulers take counsel together, against Yahweh, and against his Anointed, saying,
(3) “Let’s break their bonds apart, and cast their cords from us.”
(4) He who sits in the heavens will laugh. The Lord will have them in derision.
(5) Then he will speak to them in his anger, and terrify them in his wrath:
(6) “Yet I have set my King on my holy hill of Zion.”
(7) I will tell of the decree. Yahweh said to me, “You are my son. Today I have become your father.
(8) Ask of me, and I will give the nations for your inheritance, the uttermost parts of the earth for your possession.
(9) You shall break them with a rod of iron. You shall dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”
(10) Now therefore be wise, you kings. Be instructed, you judges of the earth.
(11) Serve Yahweh with fear, and rejoice with trembling.
(12) Give sincere homage to the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish on the way, for his wrath will soon be kindled. Blessed are all those who take refuge in him.

800px-Ossuary_of_the_high_priest_Joseph_Caiaphas_P1180839

An ossuary, found in Jerusalem, containing the bones of a man named Caiaphas.
By deror_avi – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0

An ossuary, found in Jerusalem, containing the bones of a man named Caiaphas.

By deror_avi – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0,

Chapter 27 – High Priests, Low Men

Posted on June 6, 2017 by danlwhite

The End Time Church: From the Cathedrals to the Catacombs

By Dan L. White

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB) which is in the public domain.

Chapter 27

High Priests, Low Men

Hey, Moses was a great guy but God did not make Moses the high priest.

Moses was a prophet, a very special prophet.

Deu 18
18) I will raise them up a prophet from among their brothers, like you [Moses]. I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I shall command him.

That prophet like Moses was to be the Messiah. So Moses was a very special prophet.

What is a prophet?

A prophet is someone, either male or female, that God communicates with directly. He certainly did that with Moses.

Num 12
6) He said, Now hear my words. If there is a prophet among you, I, Yahweh, will make myself known to him in a vision. I will speak with him in a dream.
7) My servant Moses is not so. He is faithful in all my house.
8) With him, I will speak mouth to mouth, even plainly, and not in riddles; and he shall see Yahweh’s form. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant, against Moses? (Yahweh said that to Aaron and Miriam.)

Normally God speaks to a prophet by a vision or dream, as he did with Samuel, but Yahweh spoke to Moses —

Face to face!

Exo 33
7) Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, far away from the camp, and he called it “The Tent of Meeting.” Everyone who sought Yahweh went out to the Tent of Meeting, which was outside the camp.
8) When Moses went out to the Tent, all the people rose up, and stood, everyone at their tent door, and watched Moses, until he had gone into the Tent.
9) When Moses entered into the Tent, the pillar of cloud descended, stood at the door of the Tent, and spoke with Moses.
10) All the people saw the pillar of cloud stand at the door of the Tent, and all the people rose up and worshiped, everyone at their tent door.
11) Yahweh spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend…

In spite of that, Yahweh did not make his friend Moses the high priest. Instead Moses’ brother Aaron was appointed high priest.

Exo 28
1) “Bring Aaron your brother, and his sons with him, near to you from among the children of Israel, that he may minister to me in the priest’s office, even Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar, Aaron’s sons.

But Aaron was not without his problems, you know.

He made the golden calf:

Exo 32
24) I said to them, Whoever has any gold, let them take it off: so they gave it to me; and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf.

He and Miriam spoke against Moses.

Num 12
1) Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married; for he had married a Cushite woman.
2) They said, Has Yahweh indeed spoken only with Moses? Hasn’t he spoken also with us? And Yahweh heard it.

In spite of his shortcomings, slightly arrogant Aaron and not meek Moses was made high priest.

At that time, God did not combine the office of prophet and high priest.

Yahweh was king.

Moses was prophet.

Aaron was high priest.

The positions of high priest and prophet were purposely split. One person did not hold both positions.

Only Aaron’s children and descendants were to be priests. ISBE discusses how the position of priest was to serve and not to be served.

ISBE, Priest, High
Their duties were strictly religious. They had no political power conferred upon them. Their services, their dependent position, and the way in which they were sustained, i.e. by the free gifts of the people, precluded them from exercising any undue influence in the affairs of the nation… as originally appointed the priesthood in Israel was not a caste, nor a hierarchy, nor a political factor, but a divinely-appointed medium of communication between God and the people.

The priests served the people in their worship of God, but they did not get between the people and God.

ISBE, Priest, High cont.
The Hebrew priests in no wise interfered with the conscience of men. The Hebrew worshipper of his own free will laid his hand on the head of his sacrifice, and confessed his sins to God alone. His conscience was quite free and untrammeled.

Note that the people did not confess their sins to the priest nor was their sacrifice offered to the priest. The sacrifice was offered to Yahweh and the sins were confessed to Yahweh. The priest was not between the people and God. The priests only helped the people worship God.

The high priest was picked only by God, not by the people or by any political ruler.

Heb 5
4) Nobody takes this honor on himself, but he is called by God, just like Aaron was.

Gill Commentary on Hebrews 5:4
Now no man might take this honourable office upon himself, or intrude himself into it, or obtain it by any unjust method, or in any other way than by a call from God; nor did any man dare to do it, until of late, when some got into it of themselves, and were put in by the Roman governors, and even purchased it of them:

Aaron was picked by Yahweh God to be high priest. After him, his family was to fill that position. No one else was.

Aaron and the priests were Levites, but not all Levites were priests. The tribe of Levi was picked to specially serve God, but different families within that tribe each had certain jobs. Korah’s family, from Kohath, had extremely important jobs.

Num 3
31) Their duty shall be the ark, the table, the lamp stand, the altars, the vessels of the sanctuary with which they minister, and the screen, and all its service.

They took care of the Ark of the Covenant and the vessels in the Holy of Holies. Very special position! Moses pointed that out to Korah, when Korah and his Komrades demanded the priesthood also.

Num 16
1) Now Korah, the son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, with Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, and On, the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben, took some men.
2) They rose up before Moses, with some of the children of Israel, two hundred fifty princes of the congregation, called to the assembly, men of renown.
3) They assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron, and said to them, “You take too much on yourself, since all the congregation are holy, everyone of them, and Yahweh is among them! Why do you lift yourselves up above Yahweh’s assembly?”
4) When Moses heard it, he fell on his face.
5) He said to Korah and to all his company, “In the morning, Yahweh will show who are his, and who is holy, and will cause him to come near to him. Even him whom he shall choose, he will cause to come near to him.
6) Do this: take censers, Korah, and all his company;
7) and put fire in them, and put incense on them before Yahweh tomorrow. It shall be that the man whom Yahweh chooses, he shall be holy. You have gone too far, you sons of Levi!”
8) Moses said to Korah, “Hear now, you sons of Levi
9) Is it a small thing to you, that the God of Israel has separated you from the congregation of Israel, to bring you near to himself, to do the service of Yahweh’s tabernacle, and to stand before the congregation to minister to them;
10) and that he has brought you near, and all your brothers the sons of Levi with you? Do you seek the priesthood also?

To answer Moses question — Korah did seek the priesthood also.

He didn’t get it.

Num 16
25) Moses rose up and went to Dathan and Abiram; and the elders of Israel followed him.
26) He spoke to the congregation, saying, Depart, please, from the tents of these wicked men, and touch nothing of theirs, lest you be consumed in all their sins!
27) So they went away from the tent of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, on every side. Dathan and Abiram came out, and stood at the door of their tents, with their wives, their sons, and their little ones.
28) Moses said, Hereby you shall know that Yahweh has sent me to do all these works; for they are not from my own mind.
29) If these men die the common death of all men, or if they experience what all men experience, then Yahweh hasn’t sent me.
30) But if Yahweh makes a new thing, and the ground opens its mouth, and swallows them up, with all that belong to them, and they go down alive into Sheol; then you shall understand that these men have despised Yahweh.
31) As he finished speaking all these words, the ground that was under them split apart.
32) The earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households, all of Korah’s men, and all their goods.
33) So they, and all that belonged to them went down alive into Sheol. The earth closed on them, and they perished from among the assembly.
34) All Israel that were around them fled at their cry; for they said, Lest the earth swallow us up!
35) Fire came out from Yahweh, and devoured the two hundred fifty men who offered the incense.

So not just anybody could be a priest. You recall that during the time of the judges, Micah, a descendant of Moses, hired himself out as a priest, but he was not a real priest, because he was not from Aaron.

We have already cited in a previous chapter how Uzziah forgot that priests were Yahweh appointed, not self appointed. When Uzziah went into the temple to do the priests’ job of offering the incense —

2Ch 26
18) They resisted Uzziah the king, and said to him, It isn’t for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to Yahweh, but for the priests the sons of Aaron, who are consecrated to burn incense. Go out of the sanctuary, for you have trespassed. It will not be for your honor from Yahweh God.

That definitely was not to Uzziah’s honor. His attempt to politicize the priesthood left him a lifelong leper.

Aaron was the first high priest and his descendants were to succeed him in that office, as his son Eleazar did.

Num 20
24) Aaron shall be gathered to his people; for he shall not enter into the land which I have given to the children of Israel, because you rebelled against my word at the waters of Meribah.
25) Take Aaron and Eleazar his son, and bring them up to Mount Hor;
26) and strip Aaron of his garments, and put them on Eleazar his son. Aaron shall be gathered, and shall die there.
27) Moses did as Yahweh commanded. They went up into Mount Hor in the sight of all the congregation.
28) Moses stripped Aaron of his garments, and put them on Eleazar his son. Aaron died there on the top of the mountain, and Moses and Eleazar came down from the mountain.

Then Eleazar’s son Phineas followed him.

Jdg 20
27) The children of Israel asked Yahweh (for the ark of the covenant of God was there in those days,
28) and Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, stood before it in those days)…

Aaron’s progeny continued to be high priests, even after they returned from captivity in Babylon, when Joshua was the first high priest back in the Holy Land after the exile. However, after the Hasmoneans successfully rebelled against the Greeks, they were not only the political leaders but also claimed the office of high priest.

The Hasmoneans claimed not only the throne of Judah, but also the post of High Priest. This assertion of religious authority conflicted with the tradition of the priests coming from the descendants of Moses’ brother Aaron and the tribe of Levi. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/history-and-overview-of-the-maccabees

The Hasmoneans, though Kohanim of the tribe of Levi, were not in line for the high priesthood or for political leadership, which they usurped. http://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-hasmonean-dynasty/

So it seems as if the Hasmoneans pulled a Korah, as when Moses asked the sons of Levi, “Do you seek the priesthood also?” The Hasmoneans did seek it and got it.

The Hasmoneans did what Yahweh did not do. They combined the office of political ruler and high priest. They had the heritage for neither. They were not descended from King David and so were imposter kings; they were not descended from the high priest line from Aaron, and so were imposter high priests.

They consolidated their power by centralizing authority in Jerusalem and combining the office of king and High Priest. This attracted criticism from some because the Hasmonean’s were not descended from Moses’ brother, Aaron the first High Priest and from others, especially the Pharisees because they exercised both religious and political authority. http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/MaccabeesNew World Encyclopedia, Maccabees

After that, the office of high priest got lower and lower, because of the men who got it.

ISBE, Priest, High
It is true that in process of time the high office degenerated, and became a thing of barter and sale in the hands of unscrupulous and corrupt men,…

When Rome conquered Judea in 63 BCE, the positions of king and high priest of the Jews were politically set. Herod, the king of the Jews, removed the Hasmonean descendants from the office of high priest because he thought they might be a threat to him.

Encyclopedia Judaica, High Priest:

With the Roman conquest of Judea and subsequent Herodean rule, the office of high priest became a political tool in the hands of the administration, and until the destruction of the Temple was never to return to its earlier prominence. Herod, in an attempt to base his regime on new elements within Jewish society, completely disassociated himself from the Hasmonean dynasty… Although the high priests continued to serve as presidents of the Sanhedrin, both their actual powers and measure of esteem among the people gradually deteriorated, and derision of the high priests during the late Second Temple period is commonly quoted in rabbinic literature… By the end of the Second Temple period the high priest was considered no more than a religious functionary of the Roman administration, and thus even the garments of the high priest were entrusted at times to the hands of the local Roman procurator and handed over to the priests just prior to the various festivals.

Note that last statement. By the time the temple fell, the high priest was a Roman vassal. In order to serve at the festivals, he had to go to the Roman official just to put his clothes on.

The office of high priest, which should have been a lifetime position, became so politicized that between 5 BCE and the fall of the temple in 70 CE, there were 26 different high priests. Those high priests averaged only about 3 years in the position.

Banana priests!

The longest serving high priest during that time was perhaps the worst. That was Caiaphas, who condemned Yeshua to death. Annas served as high priest from 6-15 CE, and Caiaphas, married to Annas’ daughter, served from 18-36 CE. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/high-priests-of-the-second-temple-period

By the time of Christ, the position of high priest had become just another political tool of the Roman emperor or his vassal. High priests were appointed whose first loyalty was to Rome, not God, and the prime interest of those men was in protecting their position. High priests suffered from the same malady as Israel’s kings — low human nature.

When Israel went to the Holy Land, Yahweh was king, Moses was prophet, and Aaron was high priest. By the time the Messiah was born, the Roman emperor was Israel’s overall king, Rome or their vassal Herod appointed the high priest, and there were no prophets. Israel desperately needed a king, a prophet, and a high priest.

No wonder the shepherds shouted for joy when Yeshua was born.

Dan L. White Homeschool Helpers

Books to Exhort, not Excuse

Chapter 37 – Ruin, Ruin, Ruin

Chapter 35 – The Promise to David

Chapter 34 – The King of the Church

Chapter 33 – Who Is King of the Church?

Chapter 32 – So What is the Church, Anyway?

Chapter 31 – Where is the One True Denomination?

Chapter 30 – Rejecting the King Again

Chapter 29 – The King Comes to Zion

Chapter 28 – The High Priest’s Sacrifice

Chapter 27 – High Priests, Low Men