Biblical Commentary

On the Revelation of Yahshua Christ, Part 5: The Churches at Pergamos and Thyatira

Presenting the first part of Revelation chapter 2 and the messages to the assemblies at Ephesus and Smyrna, we had encountered and discussed several concepts that are contained in those messages which we believe are necessary to understand not only in relation to the Revelation, but also to the entire Bible as well as to our lives as Christians today. First, although we are not told what sin it was that they had been committing, because the Ephesians had left their first love, as it was described, they then began to accept or to commit some sin from which they were commanded to repent. Then Christ had threatened that if they did not repent, they would be punished. So it is evident that even Christians who profess Christ and endure in His Name, who reject false apostles and Nicolaitans, which we interpret as those professional priests who with pretense would rule over the people, and who are also even commended for not bearing evil, must nevertheless seek to maintain complete obedience to the Gospel of Christ or face the consequences of punishment from God. This is absolutely contrary to the general belief of most Christians today, who basically claim that all one has to do is to believe in Jesus and perform some rituals in order to be saved. Having rejected false apostles, the Ephesians clearly believed the Gospel as it was taught them by true apostles, so they must have believed in Jesus, as today’s denominational Christians would also claim to do. Yet Christ Himself had warned them that they would be punished if they did not repent of their sin, that their lampstand would be removed from its place.

On the Revelation of Yahshua Christ, Part 4: The Churches at Ephesus and Smyrna

In our last presentation we took a long digression in order to elucidate the mistakes which the early Christian writers had made where they attempted to explain the references which Yahshua Christ had made in Revelation chapter 2 to a certain group, or class, of men whom He had called Nicolaitans. The earliest of those writers, Ignatius of Antioch, had acknowledged the existence of a group called Nicolaitans, but without explanation he referred to them as being “falsely so-called” Nicolaitans, and if they did not deserve the label then even if an actual sect existed which called themselves by that name, it could not have been the same as those to whom Christ had referred here.

Later so-called Church Fathers attributed to the Nicolaitans certain sins for which Christ had explicitly condemned Balaam and a woman whom He called Jezebel in this chapter, but Christ Himself never attributed those sins to the Nicolaitans, so the attribution cannot stand. Several others went so far as to connect these Nicolaitans to the Nicolaus of Antioch mentioned in Acts chapter 6, which is basically a slander of that particular Nicolaus. The events of Acts chapter 6 date to as early as 34 AD, and certainly happened long before 41 AD where the death of Herod Agrippa I is recorded in Acts chapter 12. We may think that if a man who was described by Luke as having been one of the early saints and leaders of the church in Judaea had broken away and began some heretical sect supposedly known to all of those early Christian writers, that Luke, as well as Peter, James and Paul along with him, most of whom must have known Nicolaus personally, would have mentioned his heresy somewhere in their writings, as they all lived and wrote for at least another 28 years. James and Paul each died about 62 AD, in different places and under different circumstances, and that is when Luke ended the records of the Book of Acts. Therefore it is highly unlikely that the Nicolaus of Acts chapter 6 had founded any heresy worthy enough to be mentioned, and even hated, by Christ here in Revelation chapter 2. Yahshua Christ must have been referring to something else.

On the Revelation of Yahshua Christ, Part 3: What is a Nicolaitan?

In our last presentation we discussed Revelation chapter 1 and the nature of Yahshua Christ as He revealed it through the apostle John. While there are numerous indications in the words of the ancient prophets that Christ is Yahweh God incarnate, and while Christ Himself had made similar professions in several different ways in the accounts in the Gospels, and especially in the Gospel of John, here in Revelation chapter 1 He made several explicit statements as well as several allegories which reveal that He is God. This is found in the underlying meaning of epithets such as “He who is and who was and who is coming” and “First Born from the dead”, but it is explicit in verses 7 and 8 where we read: “7 Behold! He comes with the clouds, and every eye shall see Him, even whoever had pierced Him, and all the tribes of the earth shall mourn before Him. Yeah, truly! 8 ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega, says Yahweh God, He who is and who was and who is coming, the Almighty.’”

On the Revelation of Yahshua Christ, Part 2: The Revelation of Christ as God

In our opening presentation in this series, we offered a description of the antiquity of the oldest extant manuscripts of the Revelation, and also sought to establish the approximate time and place of the authorship of the work, including the fact that it was written by the apostle John, the son of Zebedee, who also wrote the Gospel bearing his name, and the epistles which have been attributed to him from the earliest times. Doing that, we cited Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Hippolytus of Rome, Victorinus of Pettau, and the Acts of the Holy Apostle and Evangelist John. Our purpose was to exhibit the fact that from these eight ancient second and third-century Christian sources, a rather consistent narrative is presented in which it may be determined that the apostle John wrote his Gospel account, was imprisoned in exile on Patmos at an undetermined time in the reign of the emperor Domitian, and upon the death of Domitian he returned to Ephesus, where he penned the Revelation of Yahshua Christ. It is not certain when he may have written his three surviving epistles.

While doing that we also presented and discussed the arguments of one of the earliest skeptics of John’s authorship of the Revelation, Dionysius of Alexandria. So we hope to have also convincingly explained how the arguments of Dionysius are all faulty or without merit, and after the faults are elucidated he really has no arguments remaining to provide a substantial basis for his doubt.

On the Revelation of Yahshua Christ, Part 1: An Introduction

Here, after eleven years, we shall revisit our commentary on the Revelation of Yahshua Christ with a new presentation, and of course it shall be based on the text as it is presented in the Christogenea New Testament. Our first version of this commentary was originally presented in fourteen podcasts from December of 2010 through April of 2011. While there are several reasons for wanting to replace our old commentary, here I will only state that I hope to expand some portions of the original while also offering some clarifications, rewriting or further expounding on some of our explanations. I also hope to more thoroughly cross-reference portions of parallel prophecies which are found in the books of the prophets, especially in Ezekiel, Daniel, Obadiah, Zechariah and Malachi.

Later that same year I first published Christreich, which is the title of a book which had encapsulated the original podcast commentary. While we hope this new commentary will be more comprehensive, I do not foresee adding much to the interpretations themselves. But while I cannot yet rule that out completely, I do not think that this new version will invalidate anything I had written there, except for one note which must be corrected at Revelation chapter 20, verse 5, which I shall discuss further below. This commentary, and even this introduction, shall be founded on the edited text of Christreich rather than the notes for the original podcasts. For that reason, I was tempted to title this series “Christreich 2.0” or something similar, but I decided to stay with our more traditional scheme. That title may be appropriate if Yahweh God permits me to publish a second edition of the book, something which I certainly hope to achieve.

On the Song of Songs: Part 5, Reflections (Solomon as Prophet)

This evening I am going to do something different. Having completed our presentation of the Song of Songs, there are still further observations which we can make, and which we should make, regarding the Song in general, and especially the impact of its interpretation on various other Scriptures from Genesis through the New Testament. While we have explained or alluded to some of these aspects of the Song throughout our commentary, it may be useful to have them all in summary, and also so that we may expand on some of them to a much greater degree, further probing the depths of their meanings.

The wisdom of Solomon is evidently far greater than many men may even have the ability to perceive. The Song of Songs is not a mere love song, although it is often dismissed as such. Both Jews and Churches have offered allegorical explanations of the Song which suit themsleves, and they all fail. In opposition to them all, but similarly to the claims of some, we would assert that the Song is an allegory representing the love which Yahweh God has for the children of Israel, and the love which the children of Israel, both individually and collectively, should have for Yahweh their God, as they are His Bride, and He Himself has promised to betroth them both once again and forever. I refer primarily to Hosea chapter 2: “19 And I will betroth thee unto me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies. 20 I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness: and thou shalt know the LORD.” That promise being made to Israel in the Assyrian captivities, the betrothal is certainly fulfilled in Christ. So at the same time, the Song offers some prophecy concerning Christ, which only Christians, and not Jews, can even begin to understand.

On the Song of Songs: Part 4, the Consequences (White is Beautiful, and White is Godly)

We titled our presentation of chapters 5 and 6 of the Song of Songs as The Conclusion, adding the assertion in the parenthetical subtitle that Two Seedline is Biblical Truth. The statement may be puzzling to some who may not be fully acquainted with all of the ideological differences among Identity Christians, but it is meant to indicate that the Song supports, and even corroborates, our interpretations of the idioms of Genesis chapter 3, which we have often explained portrays an account of sexual seduction and resulting fornication. However while that is one conclusion we made from our study of the text of the Song it is not the conclusion of the Song itself. Now, as we do present the final two chapters of the Song, we will see even further corroboration for the veracity of our interpretation.

Throughout our presentation of the Song, we were also able to make conclusions which are important to a proper understanding of Biblical anthropology, that the subjects of the Song must have been of the White or Caucasian race. We will also see further evidence of that here in chapter 7. Properly, only White people can be described as being ruddy, or as having skin like ivory, or legs like pillars of marble, as we saw in the Bride’s description of the Husband in Song chapter 5 in reference to his belly and his legs. These same descriptions also further reinforce the assertion that the Song contains allegories describing sexual relations, where the Husband speaks of eating fruit from a garden, the garden being the Bride herself, or where the Bride celebrated the eating of fruit from an apple tree, which in turn was a reference to the Husband. That is evident where in the the physical descriptions the lovers are portrayed as comparing parts of one another’s nude bodies to those various natural elements, such as ivory or marble.

On the Song of Songs: Part 3, the Conclusion (Two Seedline is Biblical Truth)

Throughout the last few chapters of this Song of Songs, we have seen several allegories which describe sexual activity between lovers as the eating of fruit from trees, and also from a garden. In Song chapter 2, the bride described her husband as an apple tree and professed eating of his fruit, where it was explicit that the couple had been in the act of embracing one another in a bed, the husband having fallen asleep. Then, in a subsequent encounter in Song chapter 4, the husband described the bride as his garden, he described the wonder of her fruits, and the bride explicitly invited him to eat of them. Here, at the beginning of Song chapter 5, that encounter is not yet finished.

With that, we made assertions that the identification of these similes and metaphors as euphemisms for romantic sexual activity is irrefutable. Therefore, further comparing the similar metaphors which are found in the Epic of Gilgamesh, a work which is approximately contemporary to the time of Abraham and which was still known to Judaeans at the time of Christ, and which also explicitly employs such metaphors in reference to sexual activity, and then also comparing the account of the temptation in Genesis chapter 3, it clearly becomes manifest that Genesis chapter 3 is describing an illicit act of sex in the garden of Eden as having been the cause of the fall of man. So we may conclude that here in this romantic and even erotic love poem, the wisdom of Solomon gives us the understanding by which we may honestly interpret the otherwise enigmatic allegories of trees and fruit in Genesis chapter 3, as Solomon had also done in different ways in his other writings, in Wisdom and in Proverbs. There has long been debate in Christian Identity circles over the language and allegories of Genesis chapter 3, and in the Song of Songs, the debate is settled.

On the Song of Songs: Part 2, the Metaphor (Sex in the Garden)

In our opening commentary on the Song of Songs of Solomon, titled The Allegory, we made the assertion that the poem itself is an allegory which represents the love which Yahweh God has for the children of Israel as a nation, His bride, and which the bride is portrayed as having for her husband, which is Yahweh her God. We shall see further evidence of that allegory as the poem commences. However in spite of that underlying meaning, the work is also a love poem between an actual husband and wife, Solomon and his bride, and its metaphors represent their love and desire for one another as well as their describing acts of love-making. So here we shall assert that the metaphors employed in the description of those acts shall also give us greater insight into the meanings of similar metaphors and allegories which are found in other portions of the Biblical literature.

Up to this point, the dialogue between the husband and the bride grows in intensity as it progresses from its beginning in verse 7 of chapter 1. After the husband begins to extol the beauty of the bride, she in turn describes him as sitting at his table, as the King James Version has it, as her own bodily scent fills the air and she confesses that his odor is appealing to her. Then she exclaims that “he shall lie all night betwixt my breasts”, whereupon we should realize that the table is a metaphor, and not a literal table, and she compares her lover to something which can burn intensely, which is camphire or asphalt, in the vineyards, a place where one may not expect to find camphire. So then she once again declares her lover’s appeal and begins to speak of their bed and its surroundings before she describes herself with flowery metaphors.

On the Song of Songs: Part 1, the Allegory (Yahweh and Israel)

Here we are going to endeavor a commentary on the Song of Songs, which is also sometimes, and erroneously, referred to as the Book of Canticles. The work is attributed to King Solomon, and we have good reason to accept the attribution. Hopefully our effort shall correct at least some misgivings concerning the Song, as we shall call it here. Before we begin, we shall examine what early Christian writers thought of the Song, as we were also encouraged to do when we examined more modern references, namely the article discussing the Song found at Wikipedia.

Not every old adage is true. There is a popular saying, or at least it was popular in generations past, that warns us to “never look a gift horse in the mouth.” The common interpretation of the adage is correct, as it is saying that one should not criticize a gift. But even Solomon warned, in Proverbs chapter 19, that “6 Many will intreat the favour of the prince: and every man is a friend to him that giveth gifts.” In other words, the favor of a prince can be bought with gifts, which is bribery. So Solomon wrote later, in Proverbs chapter 29, that “4 The king by judgment establisheth the land: but he that receiveth gifts overthroweth it.” So a king who accepts such bribes may ultimately bring his own kingdom to ruin.

This is the problem with Wikipedia: access is free, so essentially, it is a gift to all who use it. But it is free because nobody is truly responsible for it, since its editors are mostly anonymous volunteers, and practically anyone can become an editor. Yet millions of people turn to it daily, and imagine it to be some fount of knowledge.

On the Epistles of John, Part 13: A Flock Divided

Here we shall present a commentary on the last of these three epistles of John. In my opinion, this presentation also marks a milestone for us, as it is the very last book in a series of commentaries on the New Testament which I had begun in December of 2010. Surely it is not my last New Testament Commentary, but once it is published there will be a Christian Identity commentary on the entire New Testament at Christogenea. This morning I estimated that to amount to 306 of these presentations, but I do not claim that as an exact figure. In the meantime, among many other things we have also done that same thing for the Minor Prophets and for other books of Scripture, such as Ecclesiastes and the Wisdom of Solomon. While I certainly know that at least some of my work these last 11 years can be improved, and some of the earlier presentations may have been more comprehensive, I am generally satisfied with the outcome, and I believe that over the years I have had to capitulate on very little, if anything, as challenges to my Christian profession have arisen. So in the very near future, I do hope to improve the commentary on the Revelation with which I had first begun. But I also hope one day in the near future to produce commentaries on the major prophets and also on the Book of Genesis, if Yahweh God is willing, but I would not want to stop there.

On the Epistles of John, Part 12: Guarding the Flock

We have recently completed our commentary on the first epistle of John, and now we shall move on to the second of the epistles attributed to the apostle. In our translation here we have either followed or considered the readings of the 4th century Codices Sinaiticus (א) and Vaticanus (B), the 5th century Codices Alexandrinus (A), and Vaticanus Graecus 2061 (048), and another 5th, or perhaps 6th century Codex known only as Uncial 0232, in which only the first nine verses of this epistle are attested, in whole or in part. These manuscripts and their differences with one another and with the Majority Text, as they are presented in the critical apparatus of the 27th edition of the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece, were all considered in our translation or in the accompanying notes. Unfortunately, there are no ancient papyri which have yet been discovered which predate the 7th century and attest to the text of either the second or third epistles of John. For all of our translations, we only considered readings from manuscripts which are esteemed to date from the 6th century and earlier.

On the Epistles of John, Part 11: The Truth of God

In our commentary on the opening verses of 1 John chapter 5 we had discussed The Spirit, the Water and the Blood, and now we shall resume that discussion here, as there is still much to consider in regard to verses 7 and 8 of this chapter. However first we shall offer a summation of some of our remarks concerning verse 6, where John had written, speaking in reference to Christ Himself, that “6 This is He having come through water and blood, Yahshua Christ. Not by water only but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit which testifies, because the Spirit is the Truth.” By writing this, John the apostle placed an emphasis on the importance of Christ’s having come into the world through blood, and since all living creatures have blood, either man or beast, it must have been John’s intention to refer to a particular blood.

On the Epistles of John, Part 10: The Spirit, the Water and the Blood

Writing this first and most significant of his three surviving epistles, the apostle John began describing the love which is in the law in chapter 2 where, speaking of Christ, he wrote: “3 And by this we may know that we know Him, if we would keep His commandments. 4 He saying that he knows Him and not keeping His commandments, he is a liar and the truth is not in him. 5 But he whom would keep His word [God’s Word], truly the love of Yahweh is perfected in him: by this we know that we are in Him.” Following that point, throughout chapters 3 and 4 of this epistle John spoke of the love of Yahweh God which He has for His children, and upheld that love as the reason for which those same children should love one another. So in chapter 3 of the epistle, John also asserted that the love which the children of God have for one another serves as the assurance that they have eternal life, where he wrote: “14 We know that we have passed over from out of death into life, because we love the brethren.” On the surface, John seems to be using the term brother quite loosely, as a fellow man or fellow believer, but that is clearly not the case once it is understood that the Gospel of Christ is the only manner which men have to distinguish the wheat from the tares. So as he continued, he stated that “He not loving [his brother] abides in death.”

On the Epistles of John, Part 9: Love is in the Law

In the last presentation of our commentary on this first epistle of John, we discussed The Discerning of Spirits in relation to the opening half of chapter 4 of this epistle. The chapter begins with the admonishment from the apostle that his readers “1… not have trust in every spirit, but scrutinize whether the spirits are from of Yahweh…” and he proceeds to inform them that those spirits, referring to embodied spirits, who are from of God would acknowledge that Yahshua, or Jesus of Nazareth, was the Christ, or Messiah, that for that reason they would be despised by the world, but that they would also love both God and one another, and in return they would be loved by God. When we read chapter 5 of the epistle, John professes that the love of God is expressed by keeping His commandments, and that is also the manner by which Christians should express their love for their brethren.

On the Epistles of John, Part 8: The Discerning of Spirits

At the end of our last presentation in this commentary on the epistles of John, which was titled Dichotomies, False and True, we presented the first few verses of 1 John chapter 4 where the apostle had explained one aspect of a true and quite significant dichotomy that existed in his time, and which is still found in our world today. That is the fact that not all spirits, or people, come from God, as John was referring to embodied spirits when he wrote that passage, and not to disembodied spirits. There he had professed that the embodied spirits which did not come from God are the source of many false prophets which had already “gone out into Society”, and that collectively, they are the antichrist which is “already now in Society.” So once again here we shall repeat that passage, which is found in the first three verses of 1 John chapter 4:

IV 1 Beloved, do not have trust in every spirit, but scrutinize whether the spirits are from of Yahweh, because many false prophets have gone out into Society.

For this same reason, in Galatians chapter 2 the apostle Paul had written of “4… false brethren unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage”. Evidently, they were false brethren because they did not belong in the first place. Likewise, in his one epistle Jude had warned of “4… certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men” and we see that having been condemned even before they “crept in unawares”, neither could they have been from of Yahweh. In his second epistle, Peter issued a similar warning.

On the Epistles of John, Part 7: Dichotomies, False and True

This may be an unusual title for a Bible commentary, but the world today is full of traps – prisons both intellectual and psychological – which keep men locked into false dichotomies, while the true dichotomies which actually define or govern our very existence as it is mandated by our Creator are virtually ignored. Then, by the grace of God, once we are able to recognize those true dichotomies, we are despised by the world. Yet the world often stands in contradiction of itself, as hypocrisy and the tendency to lie are qualities which are part of the Intrinsic Character of the enemies of God. Since “the whole world lies in the power of the Evil One”, as John had said in the closing verses of this epistle, we should expect the world to reflect those same qualities which the Devil innately possesses as a part of his own character. But of course, when I refer to the Devil I speak collectively of all of the enemies of God, and regardless of their professed religion.

On the Epistles of John, Part 6: Separating the Wheat

We began our last presentation in this commentary, The Authors of Sin, with a discussion of the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares which is found in chapter 13 of the Gospel of Matthew. That is because here in chapter 3 of the first epistle of John, the apostle teaches his readers in his own words how to separate the wheat from the tares, ostensibly from lessons that he himself had learned while hearing the teachings of Christ. By the time he wrote this epistle, John evidently had many decades of experience contemplating those words and putting them into practice. And although John did not use the same terms which are found in the parable, examining his words here we may notice that in keeping the commandments of Yahweh through the instruction of the Gospel of Christ, and loving one’s own brethren, Christians are afforded the ability both to separate the wheat and to discern the identity of the tares.

On the Epistles of John, Part 5: The Authors of Sin

In our last presentation in this commentary, titled The Children of Yahweh, we presented some of the Biblical evidence that those who were declared to be the children of God in the Old Testament are the exclusive beneficiaries of the Old Testament promises of forgiveness, reconciliation, mercy, salvation and redemption for Israel which are fulfilled in Christ, that Christ Himself and His apostles had declared that He had come to fulfill those same promises to those same people, and therefore also that it is those very same people who are exclusively considered to be the children of God in the New Testament. As Paul of Tarsus had attested in Romans chapter 11, “29… the gifts and calling of God are without repentance”, meaning that the promises of God did not change, and he also said in Galatians chapter 3 that no man may disannul or add to the promises of God. The New Covenant having been made exclusively with the ancient children of Israel, with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, as Paul also cited the words of Jeremiah in Hebrews chapter 8, under no circumstances may any other man from outside of the children of Israel ever legitimately claim to be a party to that covenant.

On the Epistles of John, Part 4: The Children of Yahweh

In our last presentation in this commentary, which discussed the final verses of John chapter 2 and which was titled Christ and Antichrist, we sought to describe what it was that the apostles and others had believed the Christ to be from their own professions as they are recorded in the Gospel accounts, and which they themselves must have attained through their understanding of the words of the prophets. So by understanding what the apostles had believed the Christ to be, only then can we properly understand what John could have meant where he wrote in that chapter and asked: “22 Who is a liar, if not he denying that Yahshua is the Christ? He is the Antichrist, who denies the Father and the Son!”