May 2014

The Epistles of Paul - Romans Part 9, 05-30-2014: The Two Natures of Adamic Man

In Romans chapter 1 Paul explained that the sinful state of man was due to a departure from Yahweh their God and the corruption of society which that departure had summoned. In Romans chapter 2 Paul credited the Romans with building a society founded on the rule of law, and contrasted those who had the law of God but did not keep it with those who did not have it and yet maintained the morality found in the precepts which the law represented. Yet Paul explained in Romans chapter 3 that all men sinned, and therefore the righteousness of Yahweh was mercy towards men even in their state of sin. So while men were not judged by God according to the law, it was nevertheless necessary for men to uphold the law.

Paul explained in Romans chapter 4 that the promises of the faith in Christ represented the ongoing fulfillment of the promises which Yahweh had made to Abraham. Paul also explained that the Romans, being descended from Abraham, were a part of that fulfillment. In that chapter Paul further explained that those promises made to Abraham transcended the Levitical law, that they were apart from and were not reliant upon the law. In Romans chapter 5 Paul asserted that eternal life was the promise of the entire Adamic race, which was also apart from the law. With this he explained that sin existed outside of the law, but that sin was not imputed because the law had not been given.

The Epistles of Paul - Romans Part 8, 05-23-2014: Israel as a Nation was and is the Bride of Yahweh

The Bible itself tells us that it is the book of the race of the Adamic man, in Genesis chapter 5. But very little is given of what is, at least by the Septuagint chronology, a 2,200 year history from the Creation of Adam unto the Flood of Noah. Then we have a table of Nations in Genesis chapter 10, and these Adamic descendants of Noah are the White nations of ancient history. They are all identifiable as such in Scripture and in archaeology and classical history, in spite of the fact that the Canaanites who are also listed are set apart as being accursed and as being race-mixers, fornicators and sodomites later in Scripture. With the establishment of these nations there are, by an approximation taken once again from the Septuagint, over 1500 years until the event which is commonly known as the Call of Abraham. None of the history of this 1500 years is recorded in Scripture. While very little of it is known from history or archaeology, from the records found on clay tablets and other inscriptions which have been dug out of the ground in Mesopotamia we can indeed tell the accuracy of what Scripture does provide.

Scripture records that during these first 3,700 years, Yahweh God had made promises to our entire race, such as those which are recorded in Genesis chapters 3 and 9, and those promises have never been revoked. The promises of God are, as Paul says in Galatians, irrevocable. However very little of nearly four thousand years of Adamic history before the birth of Jacob are mentioned at all. From the time of the Call of Abraham, the entire scripture has been focused upon one man's family, and the promises to Abraham which were transmitted to his offspring through Jacob-Israel. From that time, the other White Adamic nations are only mentioned where they come into contact with Israel. Wherever non-Adamic peoples are referenced in Scripture, it is only in relation to something wicked, or to some plague or some curse.

The Epistles of Paul - Romans Part 7, 05-16-2014: Israel and the Law

Before beginning Romans chapter 6, I would like to take a few minutes to discuss the word sin and why I avoided it in my translations, even though the word's use is so ubiquitous in Christian dialogue that it is impossible to avoid in daily discussion. When I was a child in Catholic grade school, we were taught that sin was some sort of black stain on your soul, and if you collected enough of them, you were going to suffer in flames for eternity. That was the nearly indelible picture left on my childhood mind by the nuns who educated me through the 4th grade. [It was certainly not unusual to me that black and evil were directly associated.] The nuns taught us that sin was something which resulted from certain actions, and the nature of those actions were usually and popularly described by the extreme cases, such as murder or stealing. However to a young boy with no ill intents sin seemed to be something which existed outside of the everyday routine of life, because the concept of what constituted sin was mystical or ethereal, and therefore its consequences were imagined to be disconnected from everyday reality. This was even more so the case because my parents were neither churchgoers nor Bible readers, and although they both had Christian upbringings and they were hard workers and usually decent people, they themselves were basically apostates. Catholics generally did not read the Bible, and that was the one aspect of Catholicism to which they evidently adhered. For quite some time we had a Bible in our home, but it was certainly never opened.

From 5th through 8th grades (1971 through 1974) I went to a Catholic school without nuns, and the concept of sin became even more obscure. The new school taught a substitute for Christianity which was comprised mostly of pop-culture Dharma and 1960's style hippie love which were totally disconnected from the associated parish church. During these years the Catholic religion itself was a schizophrenic institution, and by the time I got to 7th grade I too was an apostate. By the time I was a teenager, sin was not even thought of as a moral concept. Sin was a church word, and if there was no church, then there was no sin. Because sin was not connected to Yahweh's law in my childhood, except for perhaps a brief acquaintance with the ten commandments which I was never really taught, government law and peer approval became the controlling moral authorities of life, and not necessarily in that order.

The Epistles of Paul - Romans Part 6, 05-09-2014

In Romans chapter 4 we saw the substance of the faith of Abraham as it was explained by Paul of Tarsus himself, that the gifts of the promises of God are for those nations which sprung from the seed of Abraham, from Abraham's loins, as the promises of the Old Testament which Paul cited certainly attest. Those promises are not conditional upon the keeping of the law, since they were delivered long before the giving of the law and since they were made without condition. However on the other hand, with the passing of the Levitical priesthood and the end of the rituals, Paul had also explained that those nations descended from Abraham should by nature keep the laws which Yahweh God had written upon their hearts.

The scoffers and Judaizers sought to keep Christians bound to the rituals of the law, and under their own thumbs since they pretended to be the experts in the law. The apostles, however, responded negatively to this. Peter is recorded as having said, in Acts chapter 15: “9 And distinguishing nothing between both us and them, by faith He cleanses their hearts. 10 Therefore now why tempt Yahweh to place a yoke upon the necks of the students which neither our fathers nor us have been able to bear?” Likewise James is recorded in that same place, “14 Sumeon has declared just how at the first Yahweh considered to take from among the Nations a people in His Name [which according to the prophets are all those scattered Israelites who would turn to Christ]. 15 And with this the words of the prophets agree just as it is written: 16 After these things 'I shall return' and 'I shall rebuild the tent of David which has fallen and I shall rebuild its ruins and I shall set it up again, [David ruled over all twelve tribes, which split apart and followed Baal after Solomon died, and this is the tent to be rebuilt in Christ] 17 that those remaining of men [the remnant of Israel] seek Yahweh, and all the Nations whom have My Name labeled upon them [the Nations of the promise to Abraham], says Yahweh doing these things 18 known from of old [the reconciliation of Israel was known from of old because it is written in the prophets].' 19 On which account I judge not to trouble those from among the Nations who turn to Yahweh, 20 but to enjoin them to abstain from things polluted by idols and from fornication and from that which is strangled and from blood. 21 For Moses from generations of old has those who are proclaiming him in each city in the assembly halls, being read each and every Sabbath.” Of course, the summons to keep the ten commandments were already a part of the Gospel, and there are evident cultural reasons why the apostles added these few things which we see here. But we must note that Paul was in agreement with the apostles concerning the laws of Moses, and the epistles of James and Peter are also found to be in agreement.

The Epistles of Paul - Romans Part 5, 05-02-2014

From Romans chapter 1 where he cited the words of Habakkuk, that “the just shall live by faith” through Romans chapter 3, Paul had argued that justification before God was not by the rituals, or the “works of the law”. Discussing those arguments we cited many of the statements of Yahweh God by the prophets which certainly support Paul's position. Here in Romans chapter 4 Paul offers Abraham himself as an example in order to further illustrate his argument that justification is not by works, or rituals. However there is more to consider in the fabric of Paul's discourse than justification alone.

Firstly, in Romans chapters 2 and 3 Paul also drew a distinction between the Laws of Moses and the laws which were prophesied to have been written on the hearts of the children of Israel, as Yahweh had promised in the words of both Jeremiah and Isaiah. These laws, as it is related in Jeremiah, bear a direct relation to the New Covenant, and we saw that Paul explained as much in his epistle to the Hebrews as well. From this discussion it was hopefully elucidated that the basic ten commandments as well as the other moral laws of God transcend the Law of Moses which were imposed as a condition of the marriage relationship between Yahweh and Israel, and that while the Levitical laws and the associated priesthood are no longer in force, that Christians nevertheless have an obligation to uphold the basic commandments and the other moral laws of God.