The Gospel of John

On the Gospel of John, Part 41: God Glorified

All Christians can profess to glorify God, but only Identity Christians can know exactly how and why God should be glorified.

Presenting the final portion of John chapter 16 we discussed the Consolation of Expectation, as Christians encompassed by a world of sin certainly should find their consolation in an expectation of the fulfillment of the promises of Yahweh their God, and in turn that should be the substance of their faith. Yahweh God is glorified when man realizes that He keeps His promises, and comes to understand that He is true. Abraham was made an example as Yahweh had spoken to his son Isaac, and explained that his father was blessed “5 Because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.” Abraham had done those things because he believed Yahweh, as we read in Romans chapter 4, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.” In that same manner, if we believe God and keep His commandments it shall be counted to us for righteousness. We find this where Paul, speaking of Abraham’s seed, or offspring, had said in that same chapter “that righteousness might be imputed unto them also” who “walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham.” That faith of Abraham was his belief that God would indeed keep his promises.

At left: Comet Hale-Bopp by Philipp Salzgeber, CC BY-SA 2.0 AT. Wikimedia Commons

On the Gospel of John, Part 42: Out of This World

It is easy for any so-called priest or pastor to tell other men what to do, and to find one verse of Scripture or another to justify his position, especially if he does not have to do those things himself. So if he is not humble, he himself may ultimately become a parasite, feeding off the body of his flock while they themselves wither and die. This is probably the state of most denominational churches today, and especially the Roman Catholic Church, which is why they always seek new audiences, for which they turn to South America, Africa and Asia. No different than the international banks and global corporations, the so-called churches constantly need to find new ways to satiate their thirst for money and power.

On the Gospel of John, Part 43: My Will, or His Will?

The first pronoun in the subtitle is meant not in reference to myself, but to the reader or listener of this presentation.

Presenting our commentary on the lengthy prayer of Yahshua Christ which is found in John chapter 17, I hope to have explained sufficiently what it is to be “not of the world”, as Christ had prayed for His disciples and said: “16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.” But in spite of that, I understand that there are always going to be lingering questions, as it is a broad topic with great implications as to how a Christian should conduct himself as he abides within the world. It is certainly evident that Christians must remain in the world physically if the Kingdom of God is ever going to be “on earth as it is in heaven”, so Christ had also prayed saying “15 I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.” Therefore Christians must live and survive in the world, while at the same time eschewing the evils which are also in the world.

On the Gospel of John, Part 44: What is Truth?

Discussing the first portion of John chapter 18, we endeavored to illustrate the difference in the personality and deeds of Peter the apostle with the deeds and fate of Judas Iscariot. Although Judas was a devil, both his participation in the earthly ministry of Christ and the manner in which his own life came to an end had resulted in the fulfillment of certain prophecies in the Word of God concerning the passion of the Christ as it was prophesied in the Old Testament Scriptures. In contrast, Peter, an apostle of Christ and a child of God, had tried rather persistently to exert his own will upon the transpiring events, and for that he had to be rebuked by Christ on several occasions. Now here in the garden Gethsemane, as Peter attacked an officer of the temple while being greatly outnumbered by the Roman soldiers, Christ had to rebuke him once again, and we see that Peter was saved and ultimately went on to complete his own ministry in the gospel in spite of himself and his stubborn personality.

The lesson in this comparison is that Yahweh God can use even a devil to accomplish His will, as He did with Judas. But when men attempt to interfere, as Peter had attempted, they shall fail to succeed and they shall be led by God to fulfill the destiny which He has assigned to them whether they like it or not. This is the meaning which Christ Himself had explained to Peter as it is recorded at the end of John’s gospel, in chapter 21 where He told him “18 Verily, verily, I say unto thee, When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not.”

On the Gospel of John, Part 45: Gods and Emperors

In our last presentation of this 18th chapter of the Gospel of John we attempted to answer the question which was posed by Pontius Pilate, where he had asked what is truth? with the assertion that real truth is what is relative to the Will of God. So Pilate did not receive an answer to his question, since, as we have also frequently explained throughout this commentary, Yahweh God endows men with wisdom and knowledge on a need-to-know basis. So Pilate did not really need to know the truth, since it was written in the prophets that the Christ had to die, as Christ had also frequently told His Own disciples, and perhaps if Pilate had learned the truth in his conversation with Christ, the Will of God may have been hindered. Therefore it must have also been the Will of God that Pilate did not find the truth.

There are apocryphal tales which indicate that Pilate had later learned the truth concerning Christ, but I would not repeat any of those. Another lie is the description of the fate of Pilate as it is recounted in the so-called “lost” chapter of Acts, a forgery which represents itself to be the 29th chapter of Luke’s second book. There are Identity Christians who promote that work as “truth” when it is actually an absolute fraud. As we already explained here, Pilate had remained stationed in his office in Judaea until 36 AD, or perhaps as late as 37 AD, when he was relieved after complaints of how he had handled a sedition in Syria, and he returned to Rome. From that point he disappears from the historical record, and later Christians who reported his having committed suicide, such as Eusebius of Caesareia, lacked any substantiation to establish the claim as fact.

On the Gospel of John, Part 46: Crime and Culpability

As we presented our commentary on the opening verses of John chapter 19, we saw that the apostle clearly sought to describe Pontius Pilate in a way that absolved him of any complicity, minimizing his culpability in the murder of Christ. So the first charge by the Judaeans regarding Christ that would be a serious offense to Rome was that He had claimed to be king, which is not necessarily true although the gospels do record others as having made that claim on His behalf. Pontius Pilate, interrogating Christ about that charge, sought the truth of the matter and when Christ answered him with an inquiry of His Own, Pilate asked “Am I a Judaean?” That evidently indicated that he was admitting having known nothing of matters peculiar to the people of Judaea, as he then asked “Thine own nation and the chief priests have delivered thee unto me: what hast thou done?” So to answer Pilate’s first question, Christ did not deny or admit being a king, and only said that His kingdom was “not of this world” while professing that He came into the world only to speak the truth.

Although Christ did not deny the charges made by the Judaeans, Pilate was nevertheless reluctant to accept them, and sought to release Him. At this point a custom is mentioned which is difficult to verify because it is only mentioned here in the Gospel accounts, and not in any other surviving records. Pilate was described as having customarily released a prisoner on the feast as a favor to the Judaeans. While Josephus does not discuss anything like this custom in his histories, he does mention other instances of pardons which may have been granted by Roman procurators. So Pilate hoped that they would agree to release Christ, but they demanded Barabbas instead. Barabbas was a robber and a murderer, the leader of a sedition, and therefore he deserved to die. But looking at the name Barabbas from a prophetic point of view, since in Hebrew it apparently means son of the Father, in that manner it very well represents the fact that Christ had died in exchange for the sins of the sons of His Own Father.

On the Gospel of John, Part 47: The Jewish Murder of the Messiah of Israel

As we presented the first part of John chapter 19 and the account of the trial of Christ before Pontius Pilate, which we had titled Gods and Emperors, we also found a need to discuss at greater length the issue of culpability for the crucifixion of Christ. This is because there is much propaganda in presumably Christian literature which places the preponderance of guilt for the crucifixion of Christ on Pontius Pilate, or on the Romans in general, when Christ Himself, and His apostles after Him, had clearly placed that guilt on the Judaeans. So it is a wonder to us, that the Jewish propaganda which has forever attempted to shift the blame onto Pilate is so strong that now even so-called Christian scholars, or so-called scholars who claim to be Christians, no longer believe their Bibles or the veracity of the only surviving eye-witness accounts. Instead, they believe the lies of the Jews who with cunning and sophistry have imagined that they can escape the ultimate punishment which awaits them for their act of Deicide, as well as their continued acts of rebellion against that very same God whom they had slain, which they have perpetrated throughout history.

The phenomenon of Bolshevism was not new in 1917. It has erupted continually throughout history, and it is always instigated by the same people who today are known as Jews. The Bolshevik Revolution was not Russian, and the French Revolution was not French. The result of both was the oppression of Christianity and the attempt to introduce an atheistic utopia. While at least most of the Reformers were not Jews, the Jews of Europe certainly also had a significant role in assuring the success of the Reformation, and Martin Luther was allied with them until he recognized their treachery, after which he tried to warn the world, but by then it was too late and the world did not heed his warning.

On the Gospel of John, Part 48: What is Finished?

In our last presentation describing The Jewish Murder of the Messiah of Israel, we left John’s account of the crucifixion of Yahshua Christ with the exclamation by Christ that “It is finished!” and the resulting explanation by John that “turning the head He surrendered the Spirit.” While many commentators speculate upon what Christ had meant where He said that “It is finished”, John himself tells us just before he described the exclamation where he wrote: “With this, Yahshua seeing that He had already finished all things, in order that the writing would be completed, He says: ‘I thirst!’ 29 A vessel full of vinegar sat there. Therefore they brought to His mouth a sponge full of vinegar wrapped in hyssop.”

So where Christ had said “it is finished”, John understood that to mean that all things which were written in the books of the prophets concerning what would happen to the Christ were fulfilled. Christ Himself had expressed that same thing the evening before, as it is recorded in Matthew chapter 26 where He spoke to His disciples at the time of His arrest, and particularly to Peter who had tried to prevent His arrest, and He said “54 But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?” Then Matthew also wrote: “55 In that same hour said Jesus to the multitudes, Are ye come out as against a thief with swords and staves for to take me? I sat daily with you teaching in the temple, and ye laid no hold on me. 56 But all this was done, that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled.”

On the Gospel of John, Part 49: The Open Tomb

Presenting our commentary on the account of the final events in the crucifixion and death of Christ as they are described in John chapter 19, we focused on the meaning and implications of the exclamation of Christ where He had said that “It is finished!” In doing that, we hope to have sufficiently elucidated what it was that had been finished at the cross as it had been written in the prophets and explained by the apostles. However doing that, we also neglected any discussion of other aspects of the event, not all of which were recorded by John, so it may be fitting to do that here.

In relation to earlier portions of John chapter 19, we have already discussed and correlated the various descriptions of the fate of Judas Iscariot, the dream of Pilate’s wife, and other things which Matthew had included in his account of the events of this day. Then we discussed at length the culpability for the crucifixion of Christ, and we also discussed the account of Luke which relates that Pilate had sent Christ to Herod Antipas before finally relenting to the demands which the Jews had made for his crucifixion. It is very likely that Herod was elsewhere in the Praetorium, or in the district of the city where it was located, so that entire event may have taken place in a very short time. Sending Christ to Herod, it is evident that Pilate had hoped that Herod would resolve the situation and satisfy the demands of his fellow Jews by another avenue, however Herod had instead merely sent Christ back to Pilate, thereby assuring that He would indeed be crucified as it was Pilate’s last chance to avoid having Him executed.

On the Gospel of John, Part 50: Adamic Dawn

In our last presentation on John chapter 20, The Open Tomb, we discussed various aspects of the events of the morning following the resurrection of Christ, and sought to properly correlate John’s account with the descriptions which are found in the other three gospels. While we will continue doing that here, to some degree, we will shift our focus to the significance of the resurrection itself, because the risen Christ also represents what we may call the Adamic Dawn, as it provides for us an assurance that Yahweh our God transcends His Creation, that He Himself takes responsibility for His Creation, and that therefore we must also understand that His promises of eternal life for the Adamic man and salvation for all of the children of Israel are assured in His resurrection.

The ancient Egyptians, Sumerians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Greeks and Romans, the earliest Adamic cultures from which we have significant literature, all believed in the immortality of the souls of men and an underworld in which they dwelt, and often even in the judgment of men for their deeds after death. The early Greeks and others also expressed a belief in the possibility of resurrection from among the dead, although not in Christian terms, and attributed many of the same beliefs to the ancient Galatae, Gauls or Germans, attributing their bravery in battle to beliefs they had in their own immortality.

On the Gospel of John, Part 51: Feed My Sheep

The resurrection of Yahshua Christ is an assurance, for those men who can accept it, that God is true, that He does indeed transcend His creation, and that He had also determined from the beginning to take a part in His Own creation in the person of Yahshua Christ. This was spoken beforetime in the words of the prophets, and it was the inevitable conclusion that had been made by the apostles themselves once they realized the fact of His resurrection. Therefore once Thomas had seen Him he immediately responded by acknowledging Him to be both “My Lord and my God.” Realizing that Yahweh God incarnate as a man can transcend, or overcome, the physical limitations of His creation, it must be realized that His promises of eternal life for the Adamic man of His creation must also be true, and therefore the resurrection of Christ is an Adamic Dawn, as we have described it, the Son rising as a manifestation of the true Light which is an assurance of life to men, to the entire Adamic race which had previously sat in darkness.

But even this is only the beginning of a Christian understanding which leads to many other inevitable conclusions, too numerable to explain here. In his first epistle, which was evidently written not long after John had written this gospel, his own conclusions made with this understanding led him to explain that we must keep the commandments of God and love our brethren, if we love our brethren and keep the commandments then by that we have confidence that we are of God, and our keeping of the commandments of God is how we also manifest our love for our brethren.