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Saturday, November 22, 2014

 

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NEXT: "And The Voice of His Words As The Voice of A Multitude"

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PHANEROSIS
The Subject Itself


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PAGES 118-126

Joshua called for all the men of Israel, and said to the captains of the warriors who went with him: "Come near; put your feet upon the necks of these kings." And they did so. Then Joshua said to them. "Fear not, nor be dismayed, be strong and of good courage; for thus shall Yahweh do to all your enemies against whom you fight." He then slew them, and hanged the five kings on as many trees, until evening (Josh. 10:25-26).

The history of Israel is not only as strictly literal as any other histories, and truer too than those of the nations contemporary with their prophetic times, but is also allegorical, which theirs are not. Joshua and his Captains were like Joshua, the High Priest, and his companions, "men of sign"; and represented Messiah and his Captains in their future wars with "the Kings of the Earth, and of the whole Habitable (Rev. 16) whom they are to "tread down as ashes under the soles of their feet."

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In Psalm 18:32, the Spirit inquires: "Who is Eloah beside Yahweh? And who a Rock except our Elohim -- the AlL girding me with might? Even He will make my way complete. He causes my feet to be like hinds, and He will make me stand upon my high places. He is training my hands for the war; so that the Bow of Brass might be broken by my arms. Thou wilt cause my going to extend under me; and my ankle joints have not wavered. I will pursue my enemies, and shall overtake them, and I will not return till they be destroyed; I will wound them so that they shall not be able to rise; they shall fall under my feet. Thou wilt gird me with might for the war. Thou wilt subdue under me those who rise up against me. And Thou hast given to me the neck of my enemies; and those who hate me, I will cut them off. They will cry for help, but there is none to save them -- unto Yahweh, but He answered them not. Then will I grind them fine as dust before the Faces of the Spirit; as the mire of the streets will I pour them out. Thou wilt deliver me from the contentions of the nations; Thou hast appointed me for Prince of the nations. A nation which I know not shall serve me. At the hearing of the ear they shall obey; the sons of the foreigner shall submit to me; and the sons of the foreigner shall fall, and tremble from their strongholds."

47.--"Yahweh lives, and blessed be my rock; and He shall raise the Elohim of my salvation. The AIL that giveth avengements to me, even He will subdue the nations under me."

49.--"Thou wilt exalt me: from the Man of Violence (Paul's 'Man of Sin', the Lawless One) thou wilt deliver me. Therefore, O Yahweh, I will give Thee thanks among the Gentiles, and sing psalms unto Thy name, magnifying the deliverances of HIS KING and performing the promise to HIS MESSIAH, to David, and to his seed for the Olahm."

 

In this passage, the Eternal Spirit through his prophet, speaks of Messiah in the crisis of his controversy for Zion, in which, as the representative and chief of Daniel's "Man of the One Spirit," he puts his feet upon the necks of the kings of the earth, scatters their armies like dust before the wind, and becomes Prince or Head of the nations in their stead. But this is true also of all the individual members of this NEW MAN (Eph. 2:15; 4:24; 2 Cot. 5:17; Gal. 6:15). If the New Adam himself thus make war upon, and trample in the mire the kings and armies of the Old Adam nature, He has promised that all true believers "in Him" -- all who are Abraham's seed by being Christ's -- that is, all the Saints, shall do the same; and shall share with Him in the fruits of his and their victory.

In proof of this we refer the reader to the following passages: "The righteous shall rejoice when he sees the vengeance; he shall

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wash his feet in the blood of the wicked. So that a man shall say, Verily, there is a reward for the righteous: verily, there are Elohim ruling in the earth" (Ps. 58:10, 11).

All the horns of the wicked I will cut off; but the horns of the righteous shall be exalted (Ps. 75:10). He shall put off the spirit of princes; He is terrible to the kings of the earth (76:12). Arise, O Elohim, judge the earth; for Thou shalt acquire possession in all the nations (Ps. 82:8). He will exalt the horn of His nation; the glory of all His saints; of the sons of Israel, a people near to Him (Ps. 148:14). Israel shall rejoice in Him that made him; the sons of Zion shall exult in their king ....The saints shall exult in glory; they shall shout with joy upon their couches. The high things of AlL shall be in their mouths; and a two-edged sword in their hands, to execute vengeance upon the nations and punishment upon the peoples; to bind their kings with chains, and their honoured ones with fetters of iron, to execute upon them the judgment written; this honour have ALL HIS SAINTS (Ps. 149).

Now the phrase all His saints is comprehensive of Messiah and his brethren, who collectively form "the Man of the one Spirit," or Paul's "New Man." Hence, the same things are affirmed of them that are predicated concerning Him. Their feet will be like hinds -- swift in the pursuit of their enemies, whom they will overtake and destroy. These will fall before their power; and as Malachi says, they will trample them as ashes under the soles of their feet; and, when they have got the victory, they will rule with Messiah as "princes in all the earth" (Ps. 45:16). The resurrected "Elohim ruling in the earth." The Elohim of "Messiah's salvation."

This is the teaching of the Old Testament, with which the New Testament is in exact conformity; for they harmonize upon every subject, as might be expected from the declaration of its writers, that they taught none other things than Moses and other prophets had predicted.

Now the apostles have proved beyond all confutation that Jesus is the Messiah or Christ of Yahweh promised to Abraham, David and Judah. Hence, all that is said about the Christ in the Old Testament must, sooner or later, be fulfilled in Jesus. But the prophets exhibit the Christ, not as a solitary man only, but also as a man of Multitude, as we have abundantly shown. Therefore, Jesus and his apostles preached the Christ in the same form -- as One Person, and a Multitude in that One, in and through all of whom the Eternal Spirit would dwell and manifest His power. "I and the Father," said Jesus, "are One" ONE YAHWEH; and concerning his apostles, and all Jews and Gentiles believing into him through the apostles' testimony, he also said, "I pray that they all may be one; 'as' Thou Father art in me and I in Thee, that they also may be ONE IN US -- that they may be one even as we are one; I in them and Thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one" (John 17:21) -- in One YAHWEH; that is, in the one perfect Man of the Spirit, styled Jehovah, Yahweh, or Yah, because HE SHALL BE. "Hear, O Israel, Yahweh, our Mighty Ones is One Yahweh." This is the "incommunicable name" as ye term it -- a Name of Multitude, which Isaiah saith, "is coming from afar, His anger burning, and the violence of a conflagration; His lips are full of indignation, and His tongue as a devouring fire, and His breath as an overflowing stream shall reach to the neck for the scattering of the nations with the fan of destruction" (ch. 30:27). It is the Name of Multitude expressed in the formula or symbol, into which the believers are baptized - "The Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit"; every such believer when so immersed, being a constituent of that name; and therefore addressed by Paul as "in God the Father, and the Lord Jesus Anointed" (1 Thess. 1:1). This is that "glorious and fearful Name-Yahweh E1oahaikha," O Israel, which your fathers would not enter into by obeying; and on account of which, as Moses forewarned you in Deut. 28:58, the Eternal Power has made thy plagues wonderful to this day.

Daniel's "great vision" was of this consuming Name -- the mystical or multitudinous Christ -- to every accepted member of which "One Body" it is said by the Spirit, "that which ye have, hold fast till I come. And he that overcometh and keepeth my works to the end, to him will I give dominion over the nations; and he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the earthen vessels they shall be broken to pieces; even as I also received of my Father" (Rev. 2:25). And again, "He that overcometh, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out; and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the New Jerusalem descending out of the heaven from my God, even my new name" (ch. 3:12). "He that overcometh, I will give to him to sit with me on my throne, even as I also overcame, and sit with my Father on His throne" (ch. 3:21). To write upon one who has gained a victory over himself and the world, the name of Deity, and the name of the city of Deity, is to declare him a constituent of the name inscribed upon him. Messiah and his brethren are "joint heirs" -- the eyes, and ears, and arms, and feet of Daniel's Spirit-Man, whose name is YAHWEH-ELOHIM.

John says that the feet of this Man, whom he also saw in vision, are "like unto incandescent brass, as if they had been glowing in a furnace" (Rev. 1:15). The arms and the feet are symbolized

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in brass to connect them with the temple-pattern of heavenly things. The altar of burnt-offering and the laver, and the two pillars of the temple-porch, and many other things pertaining to the Court of the Priests, were all of brass, or overlaid therewith. The brass pertaining to the temple was all holy. The Brazen Altar was "most holy," so that whoever touched it was holy (Exod. 29:37; cp. Math. 23:19); no Israelite, however, was permitted to touch it unless he belonged to the seed of Aaron; and even they were not permitted to approach the altar till they had first washed their hands and feet in the Brazen Sea.

The Altar of Burnt-Offering prefigured the Messiah's Body in sacrificial manifestation. The idea of an altar of sacrifice representing a personal and divine plurality is frequent in Scripture. Thus, Jacob erected an altar at Shalem, in the land of Canaan, and called it AIL-ELOHAI YISRAAIL, that is, the "Strength of the Mighty Ones of Israel" (Gen. 33:20); and Moses, before the law was given, and in memory of the victory of Joshua over Amalek, "built an altar, and called the name of it YAHWEH-NISSI"; that is, He shall be my Ensign--He who was symbolized by the altar (Exod. 17:15; Isa. 11:10, 12; 18:3; 31:9; Zech. 9:16).

This Yahweh-nissi-altar was superseded by an altar overlaid with plates of brass. These plates represented "the flesh of sin" purified by fiery-trial. "Gold, silver, brass, iron, tin and lead, everything," said Moses, "that may abide the fire, ye shall make go through the fire, and it shall be clean; nevertheless, it shall be purified with the water of separation; and all that abideth not the fire, ye shall make go through the water" (Num. 31:23). The connection of the plates with sin's flesh, is established by their history. They were the "censers of those sinners against their own souls," Korah, Dathan, Abiram and their company, two hundred and fifty of them, who rebelled against the Strength of Israel. He commanded Eleazar, Aaron's son, to melt them, and roll them into broad plates, for "a covering of the Altar," and "a sign to the children of Israel" (Num. 16:38). The Brazen Altar, which was four-square, had four Horns of Brass, one at each corner; and in sacrifice the blood was applied to the Horns by the Priest's fingers; and the rest was. all poured beside the bottom of the altar (Exod. 29:12). These Horns represent the same things as the Four Cherubims, the Four Carpenters, and the Four Living Ones, of Ezekiel, Zechariah, and John; only in the Brazen State which precedes the Golden Olahm, or Millennium. As Horns of Brass, they "execute the judgment written" as a consuming fire; for brass and offering by fire are the association of things in the type.

The Brazen Altar and its Horns of Brass, then, are symbolical of AIL, the Eternal power in Elohal, or sacrificial and judicial manifestation in flesh. "Eloah will come from Teman," saith the prophet, "the Holy One from Mount Paran: consider!

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His glory covers the heavens, and His praise fills the earth: and the splendour shall be as the light; He has Horns out of His hand; and there is the covering of His Strong Ones. Before His faces shall go pestilence, and from his feet lightnings shall proceed. He stood, and measured the earth; He beheld and caused the nations to tremble; and the mountains of antiquity were dispersed; and the hills of the Olahm did bow; the goings of the Olahm are His" (Hab. 3:3-6).

The Horns of the Brazen and Golden Altars are His Eternal Spirit's strong ones, who disperse the empires of antiquity, and subjugate the kingdoms of the latter days to Him and His Anointed; so that the current of the world's affairs will be directed by His Elohim, in the ensuing thousand years, or Daniel's "season and a time."

The saints, then, are the brazen arms and feet of the Man of the One Spirit, who have all passed through the fire, and the water of separation, and been consecrated by the blood of the covenant; and "are partakers with the Altar," even Jesus (1 Cor. 9:13; 10:18; Heb. 13:10, 12); and those of them who have been slain, have been poured out "beside the bottom," or "under the altar," from whence the cry ascends to the Father, "How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell upon the earth?" (Rev. 6:10; 11:1). Hence, those who dwell upon the earth, being like Israel of old, grievous re-volters, brass and iron, corruptors all (Jer. 6:28), are to be cast into a furnace glowing with the heat of Yahweh's indignation. Israel has been passing through the process for ages. They have been trampled under foot of the Gentiles in a great furnace of affliction; for punishment was to begin first at the Jew; and afterwards to be visited upon the brass and iron of the Gentiles. Ezekiel's description of Israel's punishment by Gentile agency will illustrate that of the Gentiles by the agency of Israel, under the direction of the men "whose feet are like incandescent brass, glowing in a furnace"; and will furnish an obvious interpretation of the text. "The word of Yahweh," says the prophet, "came unto me, saying, Son of Man, the house of Israel is to me become dross; they are all brass, and tin, and iron, and lead, in the midst of the furnace; they are the dross of silver. Therefore, thus saith Yahweh Elohim, because ye are all become dross, behold, therefore, I will gather you into the midst of Jerusalem. As they gather silver, and brass, and iron, and lead, and tin, into the midst of the furnace, to blow the fire upon it to melt it, so will I gather you in my anger and in my fury! and I will leave you, and blow upon you in the fire of my wrath, and ye shall be melted in the midst thereof. As silver is melted in the midst of the furnace, so shall ye be melted in the midst thereof; and ye shall know

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that I, Yahweh, have poured out my fury upon you" (ch. 22:18-20). Israel in the flesh are here compared to brass and other metals, full of dross. This drossy nature of the brass is the characteristic by which they are distinguished from "the fine" or "incandescent brass" of the Man of the One Spirit, or Israel in the Spirit, in glowing or burning operation upon the subjects of Yahweh's fiery indignation.

Israel as dross is exemplified in the denunciations of the prophets. Their drossiness is seen in the abominations they practised in burning incense to reptiles and filthy beasts, and idols of every sort; in their women weeping for Tammuz, the Adonis of the Greeks; and in their worshipping the sun between the porch and the altar with their backs toward the temple of Yahweh (Ezek. 8:7, 8). They are still in the drossy state with the curse of Moses on them. With the exception of circumcision (which, however, was not from Moses, but from Abraham) they do nothing he commanded them to do; and, therefore, disregarding him, they necessarily reject Jesus, of whom he wrote. "Cursed is every one," says Moses, "that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them." Israel lives in the perpetual violation of the law, and yet seeks justification by that law, which only thunders the curses of mount Ebal in their ears. "Cursed be he," saith Moses, "that taketh reward to slay an innocent person." This Israel did in paying Judas thirty pieces of silver for the betraying of Jesus, and in their priests taking the price of blood returned to them, and purchasing therewith the Potter's Field. The Pagan judge pronounced him faultless; and in this declaration convicts the Jewish nation of the crime of "TAKING THE REWARD OF TREACHERY PAID TO EFFECT THE DEATH OF AN INNOCENT PERSON." And the crime being committed, the people shouted the "Amen," saying: "Let his blood be upon us, and upon our children!" These children, or posterity, are with us at this day -- "the dross of silver in the midst of the furnace of affliction, 'left' of Yahweh, and 'melted'."

But, if Israel be the dross of silver, the Gentiles are the dross of brass, iron, lead, and tin. The Gentile dross is no purer than Israel's. Israel boasts in Moses, and pays no regard to what he prescribes; and the Gentiles bepraise Jesus while their eyes are closed and their hearts steeled against his doctrine and commands; so that Jews and Gentiles are all guilty before God -- they only excepted who believe the Gospel of the kingdom and obey it. They have all, therefore, to be gathered into a furnace glowing with intense combustion, before they attain to the blessedness that is to come upon all nations through Abraham and his seed. Jews and Gentiles must he "melted in the fire of Yahweh's

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wrath," which fire will burn through the operations of the arms and feet of the Man of the One -- "the saints executing the judgment written," and "treading the wicked as ashes under the soles of their feet."

The furnace in which Israel will become molten brass is "the wilderness of the peoples," where Yahweh saith He will plead with them face to face; rule over them with fury poured out, and purge out from among them the rebellious, whom He will not permit to enter into the Holy Land to live there in His sight under the government of His King--the Christ (Ezek. 20:33-44). When thus purged, the Jewish nation will be brass and silver well refined (Mal. 3:2-3). The rebellious dross will be cleaned out, and Anti-Mosaic-Judaism, by which they are now caused to wander out of the way, will have been destroyed from the earth. The refining furnace is the "time of Jacob's trouble," out of which he is to be delivered (Jer. 30:7); and though they are now "prostrate among the cattle pens," they will be "the wings of the Dove covered with silver and her feathers with the brightness of fine gold" (Ps. 68:13).

But the Gentiles are to become molten brass as well as Israel. Their brass, therefore, is also to be gathered into the furnace, that it may be melted and refined in the fire of Yahweh's wrath, The place of the furnace is also "the wilderness of the people," that wilderness inhabited by the peoples, multitudes, nations, and tongues -- the "many waters upon which the Great Harlot sitteth" -- that John of Patmos refers to in Rev. 17:1,15 -- Portugal, Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Greece, Egypt; and, in short, all being the Meditteranean and Euphratean countries, being the territories of the four beasts of Daniel, constitute the furnace in which the Nebuchadnezzar gold, silver and brass, and iron, and clay--are made to glow with torrid heat of seven-fold intensity; and in which the four men of God -- the Cherubim -- walk to and fro, without hurt, "the fire having no power upon their bodies": as symbolized by Nebuchadnezzar's furnace, and by John's mystical Son of Man, in Rev. 1:15: Dan. 3:19-27. The melting and refining the Gentile brass in this Babylonian furnace, incandescent with the wrath of Deity, is Daniel's "time of trouble, such as never was, since there was a nation to that same time" (12:1). It is "the day that shall burn as an oven" (or furnace) which shall consume the proud and all that do wickedness, with their anti-Christian Gentilism, by which the peoples are deceived; but which shall have no power for evil against the people represented by Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, and the one like the Son of God; they shall come forth unharmed, unsinged, unchanged and inodorous of the fire. For these are the daughters of Zion, to whom the Spirit saith: "Arise and thresh: for I will make thine horn iron,

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and I will make thy hoofs brass; and thou shalt beat in pieces many peoples; and I will consecrate their spoil to Yahweh, and their wealth to the Adon of the whole earth" (Mic. 4:13). So that while Israel is passing through the furnace under the conduct of the saints, and are themselves being purged from dross, they are also made use of by their commanders as a torch of fire among the sheaves, or a lion among flocks of goats (Mic. 5:8; Zech 12:6), to destroy the power and kingdoms of the world, after the allegorical example of their transit out of Egypt into the land of their inheritance; for though passing under the rod themselves, they became also a rod of iron in the hand of Yahweh for the destruction of the nations, whose iniquity was full.

 


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