Commentaries and Podcasts

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 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 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.

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 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.

On the Gospel of John, Part 40: The Consolation of Expectation

Discussing the The Inevitability of Persecution as we presented the opening verses of John chapter 16, we sought to illustrate the fact that even today all true Christians, meaning those who seek to keep the commandments of Christ, should expect to be persecuted by the society-at-large in one form or another. If a Christian is not being persecuted by the world around him, if a Christian is comfortable with the world around him, then he is not really living for Christ. In Romans chapter 6, Paul of Tarsus had described, in part, what it means to live for Christ, as Christians who truly seek to do so should separate themselves from sin. Today’s churches have become agents for the “princes of this world”, and have created a false narrative urging their members to accept all sorts of sin and sinners based on what they call “Christian tolerance”, but true Christians should never be tolerant of sin. The true Christian should have already walked away from sin, as well as from those who remain in sin.

On the Gospel of John, Part 39: The Inevitability of Persecution

As we brought our commentary On the Gospel of John to the end of John chapter 15, in a presentation which we had called Genesis Synthesis, we repeated some of the things that we had said over the previous chapters, first because Christ Himself had repeated some things that He had said earlier that same night, and secondly, because we wanted to elucidate the fact that many of the assertions which He had made in the gospel are intrinsically intertwined with the symbols and allegories found in the accounts in the opening chapters of Genesis. In turn, this helps us to understand and to prove that He is indeed the remedy for the fall of our race as it is recorded in Genesis, according to a plan which was first hinted at in the allegories of Genesis, and that this was planned by Yahweh from the beginning. So in our commentary we have sought to illustrate the fact that the plan of Yahweh our God for His creation was indeed known by Him, was revealed through the Scriptures as history progressed, and has not changed course since the very beginning. We must not think that it would suddenly change course today, or that our God would somehow forget His Word, as we have the Revelation of Christ and therefore we can certainly determine what is unfolding as it happens.

On the Gospel of John, Part 38: Genesis Synthesis

This program, a commentary on John chapter 15, is titled Genesis Synthesis because the Bible is the same book, and the plan of Yahweh our God has never changed from beginning to end. Doing this, I am going to repeat some of the concepts which we have presented over our last few presentations, but here in John chapter 15 Christ also repeats certain concepts on several occasions, so I won’t feel too terribly about it.

In our last two presentations of this commentary On the Gospel of John, which were titled The Way and The True Vine and the Tree of Life, we have made the assertion that Yahshua Christ is the Tree of Life, and that the tree itself also represents the race of Adam which Yahweh had created, as the creation is described in Genesis chapters 1 and 2. Here we will continue to make those assertions, and offer further proof of their veracity as we proceed through John chapter 15. We also hope to elucidate the synthesis of the gospel of Christ with the fall of Adam in the Genesis account, as the overall plan of Yahweh God for the Adamic man which He had initially created is indeed revealed in the gospel. As we may read in the Wisdom of Solomon, in chapter 2, “23… God created man to be immortal, and made him to be an image of his own eternity.” We cannot imagine that God would fail.

On the Gospel of John, Part 37: The True Vine and the Tree of Life

In our last presentation of this commentary on John chapter 14 we discussed The Way as we saw in verse 6 of the chapter that Christ had declared that He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. So we made the assertion that the way of Christ leads to the tree of life, which, to put it simply, is Christ Himself. Then, because He had also said in verse 15 of this chapter that “If ye love me, keep my commandments”, an admonition which He repeated several times throughout His discourse on this evening before He was crucified, we may discern that the keeping of the law represents the way to Him. As we also explained, this is the significance of the cherubs which, as it is described in Genesis chapter 3, were at first set to “keep the way of the tree of life”. So the cherubs had protected that path to Christ, as they were later seen aside the mercy seat which was atop the Ark of the Covenant wherein the tablets of the law were kept. That mercy seat represented the ultimate judgment seat of Christ, where Paul wrote in Romans chapter 14 “for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.”

On the Gospel of John, Part 36: The Way

When Yahshua Christ chose His apostles from among the men who had first encountered Him at the start of His ministry, which is when He was baptized by John, they were simple and uneducated laborers, and for the most part, fishermen from the shores of Galilee. These men were not schooled in Scripture except for their attendance at the synagogues on the sabbath days, and the customary reading from the law of Moses which is referred to by James in Acts chapter 15. So far as in Acts chapter 4, at least some of the apostles were still considered unlearned, where we read “13 Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus.” Since the synagogues were the instruments of religious organization in Judaea, the teachings would have naturally been in accordance with the doctrines of the Pharisees and Sadducees, who dominated religious and political activity throughout Judaea.

But Christ did not occupy the course of His ministry schooling the apostles in the details of Scripture and giving them an education in letters. In fact, as we see in that verse from Acts chapter 4 which we have just cited, their testimony of Christ was even more valuable and made more of an impression because they were unschooled. These were simple men who witnessed profound events and gave plain and simple testimonies concerning the substance of those events. For that reason, the gospel accounts were written without craft or guile. As Paul later attested in his first epistle to the Thessalonians, “For our exhortation was not of deceit, nor of uncleanness, nor in guile: But as we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel, even so we speak”.

On the Gospel of John, Part 35: Empathy and Altruism

In our last presentation from John chapter 13, which was Part 34 of our commentary on this gospel, we spoke of the intrinsic character which all people possess, even comparing it to the structure of a water molecule and the natural behavior of its basic components, the hydrogen and oxygen atoms which make its creation possible. In one place in that presentation I said “This may seem to be conjecture, but every man has an inherent nature, and often, contrary to that nature, every man is conditioned by society to behave in a certain manner. But eventually, when confronted with an appropriate situation, it is a man’s intrinsic character which will surface and take control of his actions and determine his fate.” There I went on to use Peter’s description of the fate of Lot as an example.

The children of God are called sheep for good reason, as they are generally docile and follow along with the flock wherever they are led. The proof of that statement is easily verified in the transformation of Western society over the past few decades. Until recently, sodomites and miscegenators were the outcasts of society, and in many places, laws had prohibited both acts. Now these sins are not only publicly acceptable, but they are even publicly applauded and those who commit them are admired rather than scorned. Thus we read in Jeremiah chapter 50: “6 My people hath been lost sheep: their shepherds have caused them to go astray, they have turned them away on the mountains: they have gone from mountain to hill, they have forgotten their restingplace.”