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No 2:  The Intentional Complexity of All Divine Testimony

Our Creator’s communication pattern invariably demonstrates an intentional complexity that effectively filters access to His eternal truths and principles. God intentionally makes correct spiritual understanding quite challenging. The number one tripping point of all Bible students, whether enlightened or unenlightened, is oversimplifying divine communication. 

Yahweh’s anger against the ‘Christadelphian’ leaders (Aaron & Miriam) undermining the authority of Moses was based on their foolishness at not recognizing how Moses was the only man to whom God would communicate without that intentional complexity. 

Numbers 12:6-9 Hear now my words: If there be a prophet among you, I the Lord will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream. My servant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all mine house. With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches; and the similitude of the Lord shall he behold: wherefore then were ye not afraid to speak against my servant Moses? And the anger of the Lord was kindled against them; and he departed.

The entirely unique open communication was based on the observation that Moses was the meekest man in the world during his generation.

Vs 3 Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth.

It is the natural arrogance of an uncircumcised heart that trips over the intentionally complex divine communication pattern and ends up contradicting the Creator’s right-ness (righteousness). Historically there have always been a very small percentage of the enlightened community to have developed a circumcised heart. This process is why Joseph had to be a slave and prisoner for many years before ascending to glory, wealth and power when he was 30. This is why David the shepherd boy had to be a hunted outlaw before becoming the King of Israel when he was also 30. It is also why the physically flawless male descendants of Aaron had to wait until they matured to the age of 30 before they could qualify as the priests of God.

That filtering effect within the enlightened community is explained by Jesus when his confused disciples asked why he insisted on teaching in parables. It was the policy of Jesus not to explain those parable to anyone except his closest disciples and only privately ( Matt. 13:34-35; Mk. 4:33-34). 

Matt; 13:10-15 And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables? He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath. Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive: For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. 

Jesus taught in exactly the same intentionally complex communication pattern as his Father. It should be understood Jesus was not sent to preach the gospel to the unenlightened pagans. He was commissioned to preach to the already enlightened and covenant bound sons of Abraham. That entire Jewish generation during Christ’s ministry is equivalent to the global Christadelphian community today. As noted in the previous commentary, we are both Sister Generations transitioning from one divinely appointed Age into the next. 

The default presumption today is to identify the Christadelphian community only with Christ’s disciples and not with the Jewish community as a whole. That self-glorifying presumption is unprecedented and completely illegitimate. As a community we are just not as spiritually wonderful as we presume ourselves to be. This default presumption of divine acceptability has a blinding effect concerning the considerable number of less than complimentary prophecies concerning our specific last generation of the Ecclesial Age. We will get to that long list at some point. 

This intentional complexity testimony pattern is quite obvious. Divine prophecies are presented in layers of symbolism with misshapen beasts representing nations, cherubim representing Christ and the saints, architectural designs, clothing requirements, dietary restrictions and divinely imposed rituals that are deadly if not respected meticulously. The divine testimony avenue of creation offers an infinite range of complex testimony concerning the truths and principles of our Creator throughout all scientific disciplines. 

An example of an intentionally complex prophecy would be the warning Jesus offered to his disciples concerning how to escape the destruction of Jerusalem that was still 40 years in the future.  We don’t have to postulate as to that prophecy’s fulfillment as that is now history. 

Luke 21:20-22 And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. Then let them which are in Judaea flee to the mountains; and let them which are in the midst of it depart out; and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto. For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled.

Hindsight permits our understanding of these odd instructions. One would legitimately wonder why Jesus warned his disciples to leave Jerusalem after it was surrounded by an army intent on its destruction. Wouldn’t it have been so much simpler to just warn them that the Roman army will arrive on the 10th day of Nisan 40 years later and will destroy the city and the temple, resulting in the death and enslavement of over one million of the children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob? But “simple” is not the divine communication pattern. 

History records how General Vespasian led the Roman army to Jerusalem, surrounding it, late in the year 69CE. However, when the news arrived that Emperor Nero was dead, the army insisted Vespasian be appointed the next Emperor. The army pulls away from Jerusalem and Vespasian heads to Rome to indeed become the next Emperor or Rome. Faithful disciples would remember the warning of Jesus… when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies it is time to leave and not return. This was their chance. However, the majority had an entirely different understanding. They presumed God had driven the Romans away and that they had won. At the next Passover there were over 2 million of the enlightened, covenant bound children of Abraham gathered at Jerusalem when General Titus (Vespasian’s son) led the Roman Army back and surrounded the city beginning on the 10th day of Nisan in 70CE. It was 40 years to the day since Jesus rode triumphantly into Jerusalem on the colt to shouts of Hosanna, son of David (meaning save us now, son of David).

Only those who truly respected the warning of Jesus would escape Jerusalem and not return, following the retreat of Vespasian’s army. They would quietly move out of Jerusalem while everyone else was celebrating their supposedly glorious victory. Only those within the enlightened community who truly respected the right-ness of Christ’s testimony would recognize the extreme and impending danger highlighted by that initial but abandoned siege of Jerusalem. 

Christ’s prophetic warning was intentionally challenging, just like all of his Father’s intentionally complex testimony. The scriptural and creational validations for this counter-intuitive divine communication policy of intentional complexity are endless.  Therefore it seems strange to see the parade of teachers within this last generation of the Ecclesial Age who presume simplicity, are clearly unafraid of making mistakes and frequently trip over so many fairly simple issues. 

There is actually a structure to the pattern of the currently maturing challenges to the terms of our Creator’s right-ness within our transitional generation. There are 2 aspects to every divine feature and principle of our Creator’s righteousness. These two aspects of each individual truth are not equal and therefore have to be both individually recognized and also properly balanced. There is frequently one aspect of these individual features of our Creator’s righteousness that is either being completely denied or at the least being imbalanced. An example of this imbalancing attitude is the foolishly defensive phrase: “I would rather err on the side of mercy”. To “err” in the context of understanding and demonstrating our Creator’s righteousness is what is called SIN. Why would anyone be foolish enough to suggest the right thing to do at any time would be to “err” in the context of how we determine and demonstrate the right-ness of God? That ‘erring on the side of mercy’ is an eternally suicidal frame of reference in self-righteously embracing and promoting any form of error. 

The primary responsibility of everyone on this planet that ever lived, does or will live is to pursue an understanding of the terms of our Creator’s right-ness, then sacrificially choose that societally despised righteousness and then demonstrate that righteousness in all the things we think, say and do. God tells us his preference is for all people to come to a knowledge of the truth and be saved (2 Tim. 2:4). However the Creator’s default educational emphasis is not quantity, but quality. Therefore very few accept the Creator’s call to enlightenment. Even fewer respond to the call of commitment to those terms of that enlightenment. Even fewer still answer to the call to the personal performance for those terms of enlightenment. 

Our next submission for consideration will be to demonstrate the extreme divine pattern of the 2 aspects of all divine truth and principles. This is the platform of the prophesied continuing decay within the last generation of the Ecclesial Age.

Brother Jim Dillingham

1. The Inherent Danger of Being The Last Generation of the Ecclesial Age

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We are the last generation of the Ecclesial Age. We have witnessed the flourishing of the national fig tree that Jesus declared would identify the generation that would not pass away before he would return in the clouds of heaven with power and glory (Matt. 24:34). We are that one generation between the two stages of Ezekiel’s dry bones prophecy (Ezek. 37). We have witnessed the 4 reconstruction stages of the nation of Israel. We have seen the skeletal reassembly, the addition of the sinew and then the flesh and then the skin. These four stages were fulfilled in the 4 wars won by the divinely restored Jewish nation of Israel from 1947 to 1967: 1) War of Independence; 2) War of Reprisals; 3) Suez Canal Crisis and 4) 6 Day War. However we have not seen the fulfillment of Ezekiel’s second prophecy where spiritual Israel will be restored with the breath provided by the 4 winds from heaven (indicating Christ and the immortalized saints). We know assuredly that the Millennial Kingdom will begin at some point within our last generation of this Ecclesial Age. 

We constitute the third of four transition generations that experience both the end of one divinely appointed age and the beginning of the next. A divinely appointed Age is defined by a change in the priesthood, a change in divine law and is validated by an extreme outpouring of miraculous divine power to validate those changes… that are historically resisted by the enlightened community. There is always a spiritual education focus shift with the introduction of a new divinely appointed Age. The divine intent is to prompt a new maturing stage but often this is resisted as the intended new educational focus is inappropriately presumed to be a replacement or contradiction to the legitimacy of the former mandated worship structure. 

The first Age-transitioning generation of the enlightened community was saved from Egyptian slavery at the conclusion of the Patriarchal Age. The new priesthood and new laws for that First Kingdom of God were introduced at Sinai but that generation was condemned to die in the wilderness without inheriting the promised land, due to their cowardly faithlessness. 

The second Age-transitioning generation witnessed the end of the First Kingdom Age and the beginning of the Ecclesial Age with its new priesthood structure and new laws and rituals. There was a maturing educational shift from works to grace and from an emphasis on personal righteousness to imputed righteousness. These changes were validated by an even greater public display of miraculous divine power. That transition generation saw the elimination of temple worship and experienced the prophesied violent judgments against them for rejecting the Kingdom that Jesus preached. We will be the 3rd of the 4 transition generations in the Creator’s plan. The Ecclesial Age is about to end with the introduction of the Millennial Kingdom when there will be a new priesthood structure, new laws and rituals assigned and a renewed educational focus that will be very different but complementary to the Ecclesial Age. There will be a dramatically greater outpouring of miraculous divine power to validate these changes as that Kingdom expands globally.

Our identification as the 3rd transition generation from one divine age to the next places us unfortunately but distinctly into a very uncomplimentary association. From this perspective our global Christadelphian enlightened community may not be as broadly acceptable from a divine perspective as we clearly presume ourselves to be. Our individual prospective salvations may not be as assured as personally presumed. We should be examining ourselves far more critically and recalibrating our compliance with our Creator’s righteousness in a far more energetic application than is currently being demonstrated. When we compare ourselves to each other and presume our acceptability within the enlightened community certainly must mirror God and Christ’s estimation, then we invite the same mistaken overconfidence demonstrated by the two previous ‘transition generations’ of the enlightened community.

Therefore these progressive commentaries are intended to provide value specifically to the future saints among the enlightened community in this last generation, whomever they may prove to be. We will be highlighting and coordinating divine testimony from the necessary two divine witnesses of scripture (the written word of God) and creation (the spoken word of God) to address a range of features of our Creator’s righteousness that have been and are increasingly being inappropriately challenged within the enlightened community of the Christadelphians.

The format we will be pursuing will embrace many different divine testimony patterns that are often far more visible, extensive and powerful beneath the surface of scripture. The validity of these patterns will also include scientific evidence from observing creation that will be accessible to anyone with just a primary level of education, as I have no college education to reference. These testimony patterns are rarely accessible to those without circumcised hearts, no matter whether one is part of the enlightened or unenlightened community. A heart controlled thought process always searches for self-validation and self-glory, as opposed to our Creator’s validation and glory. This tripping point is very common in our current Christadelphian community, resulting in a number of regularly presented contradictions to our Creator’s righteousness that are rarely addressed critically.

The primary question category we will address will be ‘why’. The ‘why’ questions in relation to subtle but extensive divine testimony patterns always address motivation issues, as opposed to the more structural how, who, what, where and when questions. Those who have responded to and pursued the universally available divine enlightenment are tasked with thinking very differently from everyone else. We must abandon the social standard of the default serpent frame of reference we are all born with and start thinking like our Creator. It is challenging to shift from a finite mental framework to an infinite thought structure. This will put us at odds with both the unenlightened community and many within the enlightened community. This observation may be emotionally unpalatable but is validated by recognizing the pattern in how the most divinely beloved men in the history of the world were often despised by the enlightened community of their particular generation… including Abel, Joseph, Moses, David, Jeremiah, Elijah, the apostle Paul and obviously Jesus Christ. 

While Christ’s new love commandment requires us to love our Brothers and Sisters in the truth more than ourselves we also have to love Yahweh our Elohim even greater, with ALL our heart and mind and strength and life. We must never permit ourselves to place the concerns of the Ecclesia above the terms of our Creator’s righteousness (His right-ness). 

Our next commentary in this progressive series will address the anti-intuitive structure of all divine testimony with its intentionally complex filtering design. If we are to avoid the multiplying stumbling blocks in the last few years before our eternal judgment, we have to recognize it is more difficult than often presumed to correctly understand and balance the terms of our Creator’s righteousness, which is defined as “the truth” in the Apostle Paul’s inspired writings.

There are two aspects to every single feature of our Creator’s truths and principles that have to be recognized and balanced, as they are not equal. One of the features of the prophesied divine disappointment of our last generation of the Ecclesial Age is how one of these dual aspects in many different categories is being increasingly denied, thereby imbalancing our understanding of the right-ness of our Creator. 

While responses to this continuing set of commentaries are certainly welcome, they will not be publicly displayed. If you wish to respond with objections, questions, challenges or to share observations you are invited to email me at brojim@spiritsword.net .

Brother Jim Dillingham

Recalibrating to the Ancient Landmarks

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Spiritsword.net is provided as a research resource, exclusively designed for the Christadelphian community. The 1st Principles commentaries can certainly be used to support preaching efforts, promoting the capacity to be ready always to give an answer to every man that asks a reason for the hope that is in us.

Every time there is a renewal, a re-planting of the enlightened community, a progressive apostasy initiates immediately. This was true after the flood, after Israel escaped Egypt, after they entered the promised land, after they returned from the Babylonian captivity, after the initiation of the Ecclesial Age and most certainly after the recovery of the true gospel and the development of an enlightened community initiated by Bro John Thomas and refined by Bro Robert Roberts.  This unchallengeable pattern is an extension of the divine curse of decay resulting from the curse of sin and death that resulted from the contradictions to the Creator’s righteousness that corrupted a previously very good creative order in Eden.  The principle of decay is a feature of the curse. The Ecclesia, the community of the enlightened, cannot escape that pattern until it is arrested by the chaining of the satan, the devil, the serpent and the dragon in the bottomless pit at the beginning of the Sabbath Kingdom.

The audio, video and written commentaries offered within this website are intended to recalibrate the naturally and progressively descending standards of the enlightened community. The word of God is not a marshmallow or a pillow. It is a two edged sword. That sharp sword is the only way to circumcise our hearts. Without circumcised hearts we will begin to let hearts rule our minds…. reversing the divinely mandated progression. At this time just prior to the final judgment by our Messiah we should be primarily concentrating on the spiritual health of our community.

This will be a progressive project. Additions will include a wide range of commentaries on Kingdom Law (also identified as the Law of Moses); a series addressing Dreams, Visions and Parables of the Old Testament, a series addressing The Parables of Jesus Christ, a series about Immortalization,  various published articles and presentation on the unique subject of how the features of creation confirm the true gospel under the menu heading: Creation’s Gospel and menus addressing challenges within the enlightened community in this final generation of the Ecclessial Age, such as Brotherhood Leavening Issues and Challenging Issues.

We welcome communication, questions, challenges, objections and confirmations.