Clearly, Jesus did not proclaim that He will give 10,000% interest for a loan of Satan’s invention of money to promoters of racism, greed and violent rebellions against governments, to those who war against His servants striving to save the sick and the poor. Our utterly holy God never repays losses caused by evil. Rather, Jesus punishes those who cause spiritual and physical losses for the innocent and His kingdom on earth. So here Jesus was telling all elect spirits who follow Him as disciples, that they will receive “spiritual blessings in heavenly places,” as those spirits learn to do His works justly and wisely through love, if they continue to do those just, loving works even while Satan’s world order opposes them, as that devil tries to nullify truth and stop their works done in His name.
As Jesus’ disciples, we cannot forsake Him when His enemies drive us out from our homes and persecute us for bearing His name. For our brother Jesus is our most beloved. No one can replace Him in our lives. All our joys come through Him, and life is not worth living without Him. A single moment of love in the darkness of this cruel world order is worth more than all the rewards that the devil can possibly grant. And every moment of love in every life originates from our God Jesus. So, if our brothers and sisters choose to serve Satan’s world order, and insist that we must do the same, then threaten to forsake us if we do not, our hearts cannot help but turn aside from them, letting them walk down their broad highway to destruction. For we cannot abandon the truth and love of Jesus.
If a man is a disciple of Jesus, but a father, mother, wife or child cannot bear to dwell with him and abandons him, his heart cannot stop being a disciple simply to please them. No true disciple can submit to a family member’s tyranny and forsake the freedom found in Jesus. And, if some unjust authority steals our property and drives us out of our homeland, because we speak the truth against their lies, this is better than trying to suppress our blessed and brightened spirits to appease that evil power, so we might keep the property. Besides, the elect have no power to stop their spirits from believing the truth. Once Jesus’ Holy Spirit writes His Law upon our hearts, it cannot be erased, not for all eternity. These losses to our flesh are often unbearable, for our flesh fears death. And they are frustrating to the point of rage, since we can do nothing to prevent them. For those losses in Jesus’
name are not incurred through stubborn wills, nor a lack of due diligence, honesty and love. Rather, all those losses are unjustly cast upon us because we walk in Jesus’ name. And the world breaks our hearts solely to please the devil. But Jesus owns the whole of our hearts, and heals them. So we let them steal from our flesh, and even take the lives of our flesh. For our awakened spirits will soon overcome their evil with good, and nullify all their works done in Satan’s name. The true disciples of Jesus already own an inheritance in God’s eternal kingdom, which He has sown on earth. And the temporary kingdom of the devil bears no power to trample His beloved name under their feet. Thus, our spirits patiently endure all earthly losses for the sake of His holy name. We pray to Jesus for the Page 1280
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relief and survival of our flesh, but accept our losses for the benefit of our spirits. And we cannot pray to the demon Mammon for the salvation of our flesh, because that ruthless spirit demands the slavery of our spirits in exchange. Besides, all our losses surely will earn us a hundred times as much on the last day, when heaven’s gates open and we receive our true homes in our Father’s eternal land.
Jesus also told His twelve true core disciples that each would receive a “chair” or “throne” (θρόνος) in heaven above. And, of course, this would exclude Judas Iscariot, whom Jesus replaced with many others called to become the kind of teaching elders that the Scriptures call “apostles.” And we need to remember that chairs, the kind used to sit upright, were rare back then. Neither the Jews nor the Romans used chairs for eating at a table or relaxing. Rather they reclined on couches or on floor cushions when they ate, relaxed or engaged in conversations. So the kind of chair Jesus was talking about here was the kind used by Jewish teaching elders when they heard questions from disciples, or had to make judgments for the people. And Romans did same. Jesus was talking about His twelve core disciples sitting on chairs to teach and make judgments in heaven (i.e., κρίνω means “to judge, decide”). And the twelve would do this together with an unspecified number of other teaching elders.
But Jesus was not saying they would “judge” the eternal fates of the people. In fact, Jesus clearly implied that—since only the elect enter heaven and all become members of God’s priesthood of His eternal Israel—these apostles will teach and correct the elect after they go to the gates of heaven, and likely on the “mainland” of heaven too. They will assist Jesus in the same way they did while they lived on earth. But only Jesus will have the final say in all matters, and determine the eternal fates of all who every lived. For we must remember that a biblical judgment primarily involves teaching. So Jesus was saying that the twelve, together with Abraham and a host of other teaching elders, will help Him make the spirits of many elect right and sound, to build up His eternal church of Israel (which will include all the Gentile elect by then, since He will gather all into His church by then).
So there will be a very great reward for the elect who begin, while they live in bodies of flesh on earth, the process of learning God’s Word as true disciples of Jesus, who will diligently labour in the fields of God’s earthly kingdom for the training of their spirits. And some elect who enter God’s true church of Israel while their spirits dwell in bodies of flesh, will become teaching elders who lovingly and justly serve that priesthood in heaven as judges, as those who work at teaching and making decisions to solve problems for His people and for His other creations dwelling there. But most of the elect will become other kinds of equal servants in His heavenly church, each labouring according to the inherent desires and joys of their spirits. Yet, regardless of the kind of ministry that each elect spirit will fulfill, each will receive a reward worth more than a hundred times all the losses they incurred in Jesus’ name while they lived on this earth. So any man who irrationally assumes that it is not worth the loss of his time and possessions to become a faithfully serving disciple of Jesus—even if he thinks he is one of God’s elect and, therefore, will go heaven, although he remains an apostate, self-indulgent sinner—is either an extremely ignorant and untaught elect soul, or a deluded, falsely religious, non-elect soul. For the treasures of love, wisdom and truth received from the Holy Spirit of Jesus while we serve as His disciples on earth is worth more than a hundred times any earthly losses.
So Jesus assured His disciples that it is always worth it to serve Him as His disciples, no matter how much it might cost in terms of one’s physical earthly losses. It is actually utterly impossible to lose anything of any real value by fulfilling the intended purposes of God’s laws and ways, since doing so always results in one gaining truly valuable spiritual and eternal treasures in heaven, even spiritual gold, silver and precious gems which will never decay and cannot be stolen. However, Jesus also had to address another concern of His disciples. He knew they might be thinking, “It seems unjust for me to sacrifice so much to follow Jesus, and even risk my life for Him. Even now His enemies want to Page 1281
kill me almost as much as they want to kill Him. So I take all these risks and do all these works for years during my life on earth, yet all the other elect will get to go to heaven too, even though they say or do very little for Jesus. Sure, because I serve Jesus on earth, I might get to be a teaching elder in heaven. But being a teaching elder is a tough job! Why couldn’t I be a fisherman there, with no worries and very few pressing responsibilities? As for heavenly treasures, I would be more than content to live the joyful, peaceful, safe, always gratifying life that literally all the other elect will live in heaven. God is not just if He makes me sacrifice and labour in the hot sun during the rest of my life on earth, while all the other elect can live a life of ease on earth, yet go to heaven anyway!”
Jesus repeatedly taught that all people born with elect spirits will surely be harvested into the eternal life of heaven. So this left the disciples wondering why they had to suffer and die to do God’s works of truth, justice and compassion on earth, since they would end up in heaven even if they did not do those works. Therefore, Jesus explained that, although salvation is entirely a work of God, and He will complete His works for literally all elect spirits on the judgment day, without forsaking even one, God insists on beginning these works of salvation in many of His elect even while their elect spirits remain in bodies of flesh on earth. For God’s only real reason for creating this temporary earth and the entire material universe was to provide a place where infantile elect spirits could be taught and trained. The whole reason for creating elect spirits in flesh on earth was so that they could gain experiential knowledge of evil, then compare the effects of that evil with His good and true ways that He would also teach them on earth. Thus, especially for teaching elders, but also for all the other kinds of ministries in heaven, it was critical for elect spirits to engage in spiritual labouring here on earth. And literally all the elect on earth will suffer losses, since literally all are being taught to do the kinds of works they shall do in heaven. However, some elect are being taught and trained while He grants them a conscious knowledge of their Teacher, while other elect learn without this awareness.
It is not unjust for God to cause an elect soul to consciously serve Him throughout one’s entire earthly life, while He causes others to consciously serve Him only during the very last hours of their earthly lives, or causes most elect to serve Him unconsciously until after the deaths of their flesh, until He finally reveals His name to them on their last day of life outside of heaven, when all the elect will be judged to completion at the gates of heaven. For literally all elect spirits are indeed being taught by the Holy Spirit of Jesus while they live on earth, and literally all are also taking losses for the good they do through love. The elect who do not yet consciously know the name of Jesus are also doing their good works in Jesus’ name, since all the good works they do are actually done according to His will and commands that He grants anonymously to their spirits. And, if they do works according to His will and commands, then they are doing them “in His name,” albeit without knowing they are doing so. And the same is true of their losses incurred because of their good works. Those too were willingly incurred “in His name.” While those elect labourers might not have been working in God’s field directly under the supervision of Jesus, with their eyes consciously fixed upon Him, they were all still labouring somewhere on His lands and for His earthly kingdom.
Furthermore, all the most mature disciples of Jesus, all who consciously, faithfully and diligently laboured for Him on earth, have spirits which will remain awake after death, and will be called to labour at serving the elect who arrive at the gates of heaven after them, in much the same way that Abraham laboured to serve Lazarus in another parable of Jesus (Luke 16:22). Not only this, but, on the judgment day, after the earth ends and all awake, Jesus will first judge all the non-elect and send them to hell. Then Jesus will judge the elect reprobates who had been sleeping after death. He will awaken them for their correction and completion through His judgments. And, while Jesus judges those newly awakened reprobate elect souls, all the faithful elect who had remained awake while Page 1282
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they slept, will labour with Jesus to heal and complete their salvation into a useful, blessed, eternal, heavenly life. Only after all this, after Jesus completes His final judgment, and after the more mature elect who faithfully served Him on earth help Him, will all the elect enter heaven. Therefore, the lost and reprobate elect will be the last to be judged, but the faithful elect will have remained awake and will have received His teachings of His judgments for some time before those others are awakened.
So those who served Him first and longest on earth, in a diligent and faithful way, will need to wait the longest for their allotment of a heavenly home, for their hundred-fold wages. Yet their allotment of these “wages” will be no greater than the “wages” granted to the elect reprobates whose elect spirits were not awakened until the last day. For there are no hierarchies in heaven, no status symbols of bigger houses with better food than those of lower ranks. Nevertheless, not one of those who had laboured all their lives for the real Jesus, and remained awake after their flesh died, will have regrets.
So now we can see why Jesus told His core disciples, whom He was training to be teaching elders (judges), that they would receive a hundredfold for all the losses they incurred through their works on earth. Jesus was saying that all labours for God are themselves a reward, that being filled with truth and light, being able to love in the same way God loves, is the only kind of treasure that our spirits can take with them into heaven. Those labours for God feed our spirits to the full, with the most delicious and satisfying meals possible. His truth alone can fully quench the thirst of our parched spirits. Thus, we work for those inner treasures, not for the wages of a heavenly home in heaven. And we certainly do not work for the wages of Satan’s world order. And, although we may spend much more time labouring for Jesus, both here on earth and at the gates of heaven, we have no complaints, because those labours are our joy. We rejoice in being the first awake and the last to enter heaven. We would never trade places with the unconscious elect who wake last and enter first.
How the First Elect are Last, and the Last Elect are First
Immediately after telling His disciples about that hundredfold inner reward for their works on earth, Jesus added this statement: “Yet many first will be last, and [many] last [will be] first” (Mat. 19:30, from: πολλοὶ δὲ ἔσονται πρῶτοι ἔσχατοι καὶ ἔσχατοι πρῶτοι, SBLGNT). Then Jesus told them a parable to illustrate this fact, to prove how God is just to makes the first last and the last first. God is entirely just to provide equitable “wages” for all, to grant all the same status and the same kind of abundant heavenly life in the same kinds of eternal homes. For, if some gain greater inner spiritual treasures during their earthly lives, by faithfully labouring and sacrificing for Jesus while on earth, all of it came from God, and their reward is that, while the lost, empty, reprobate elect receive less.
All who are actually experiencing the New Covenant salvation of the Messiah Jesus, all who are seeing God begin to fulfill His Law in their hearts and minds, rejoice in the knowledge that Jesus will also grant literally all the elect exactly the same status that they will have in heaven, that all will also be granted an equally personally valued home. A true teaching elder will receive one small room with a desk in it, and no bed, since sleep is totally unnecessary in heaven. Yet he will be ecstatic to receive this as his eternal home, since this is all he ever desired and will desire. Another elect soul may be granted a sprawling mansion, with wondrous courtyards and gardens scattered throughout, surrounded by vast fertile and well-watered lands, if that one was created to be a heavenly equivalent of a botanist. So that one will be ecstatic to receive all this, but will not consider it to be any more nor any less than the teaching elder received, since both will use their homes for God’s purposes and both will have all they need to do those works. Therefore, both will be equally ecstatic. In other words, both will receive exactly the same “wage” after having lived upon the earth. For each soul will be able to labour in one’s own most desired works eternally in heaven, in limitless fervent joy.
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However, back on earth, perhaps that teaching elder had laboured at God’s works from his early youth, and endured much persecution all his life, for Christ’s name. Yet the elect soul who received the vast mansion and enormous tracts of land, had an easy life on earth. Perhaps the one who is the heavenly equivalent of a botanist was born in comfortable upper middle-class home, received a university education paid for by parents, then entered a career which always provided that one with a comfortable life as a botanist. But, although the spirit of that botanist truly loved other souls and God’s creation, that one had never known a thing about Jesus, and certainly did not ever directly and consciously serve Jesus at any time in one’s entire life. Thus, some might ask how God is just to give that botanist a heavenly “wage” which is precisely equal to the “wage” He gave to His servant who laboured as a teaching elder all his life, who faithfully and consciously served Jesus in His name, especially since that servant so often partook in Christ’s suffering while that botanist did not suffer?
Few seem able to comprehend the true equity of God, mostly because their perceptions of life have been so thoroughly warped by humanism, as well as by other empty philosophies and religions. But now we need to realize that the Creator grants an equality of opportunity to pursue the inherent and just desires that He writes in each spirit. For nothing else really matters. Thus, if the elect will let the minds of their very rational spirits carefully listen to the utterly holy Spirit of their Creator, they will soon discover that God’s greatest rewards for our spirits are love for Him, love for other human beings and love for His other creations. And our love is expressed through the works that our spirits cause us to do for those whom we love. Therefore, the ability of our spirits to love and express our love through our works mean more to us than anything else. And those who receive an ability to love, as well as opportunities to express that love in the kinds of works that their spirits desire to do, are all equally rewarded. The kinds of works each might do may be different. But the joy of the spirit in being able to do those different kinds of works will be equal in all. Thus, all receive exactly the same wage, all that each spirit wants and needs to accomplish according to each one’s own unique predestined calling from God. But, if any of those callings and works are left undone, because everyone had to be granted the same kind of home with the same kind of workspace, it would be unjust and inequitable. Then that injustice and inequity would cause relationships to become highly strained or even impossible. Then consider what would happen if hierarchies formed, based solely on materialistic considerations. What if someone like a teaching elder was considered to belong to a lower class because his home and workspace was smaller than someone else’s home and workspace, such as those of a biologist? If teaching elders were then ruled and silenced by biologists because God granted biologists more real estate, then those elders would not be able to do their kinds of works which are necessary for justice and spiritual well-being. So this would not only be unjust and inequitable, but also result in a lack of right teachings and judgments. Thus, materialistic hierarchies are all opposed to the loving laws and ways of God. Thus, God created the only kind of truly just and equitable system, where He owns all, then freely grants each individual with all that each requires to fully express one’s love through the works of one’s hands, with no artificial limitations set by equals.
If Satan’s world order uses all the best things from God’s creation to pay the wages of liars and thieves, as rewards for their faithfulness to that devil and his minions, so that unjust kingdom can increase its power to enslave, oppress and destroy life upon God’s earth, what will be left for God’s servants to use for God’s works? Surely it is far more rational to allocate the God-owned resources of this earth to those who will most justly and equitably use them for the true Owner’s good and loving purposes. Do we really need to reject God’s demand for full spiritual, moral, legal and free equality among all members of every corporeal body, so that arrogant fools can establish a “more rational and civilized” Satanic hierarchy that maintains “order” through terrorism? Since our Creator Page 1284
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God came to us as our Brother, walking among the poor and disenfranchised as though they were equal members of His eternal royal family, treating all as equal children of the High King, how can any of us justify any kind of hierarchical system whatsoever? And what truly loving person would ever want a hierarchical system of any kind, where one human sibling bows before an artificially
“superior” sibling? All truly loving souls desire equality. None want to experience any awkward, fearing thoughts that separate or divide one from the other. Rather, all truly loving souls want to speak frankly and openly with everyone else, revealing their innermost thoughts, without holding back anything. All of God’s awakened elect want to speak to others as to beloved brothers or sisters.
Now look at how Satan constructs his hierarchical systems, in all the corporeal bodies he creates and owns in his unjust kingdom of the world order. Most are firmly grounded on the principle that the most ruthless liar, who can psychopathically stab rivals in the back on his way to the top, will be the esteemed “leader” and god of the entire body. Then most limit the number whom they allow to stab their way to the top. They only choose their psychopathic stabbers according to something like one certain blood line, or some other narrow criteria, to lessen the number of rivals and prevent chaos.
So, if a select group of psychopathic fools are born into the family of the most esteemed psychopath, who rose to the top when the body first formed, that hierarchy will only allow those “royal” heirs to stab one another in the back until only one remains. So the one who proves to be the most ruthless murdering liar is the one whom the devil exalts as the human god and owner of all the other human beings in the body. Then that human god allocates all the others to lower classes in the hierarchy. So those least related to that human god must forever remain trapped in the lower classes, and serve as dehumanized slaves. The lower classes might earn the status of a preferred slave, if they lie and bow the lowest to their “superiors,” if they blindly obey all the utterly stupid commands of their human
“owners.” Still, in all such systems, none can fulfill the calling of God, not even the human gods, who are always watching their own backs and need to ruthlessly destroy all their rivals through their lies and violence, lest they lose their irrational, destructive power. Thus, literally everyone in those hierarchies suffer from oppression and live futile lives, even the human god who pretends to own all the people. In other words, all of hierarchical systems are designed solely for one purpose, to provide entertainment for Satan and his demons, who enjoy displays of hatred and destruction upon the lands belonging to the loving Creator. For, when devils cause losses, it makes them feel like gods. It makes feel powerful when they manipulate infantile human spirits, when they are able to cause siblings to crush and murder one another. Destroying God’s creations deeply gratifies loveless demonic egos.
So this leaves us with a choice. Will we forever suffer as the captives of filthy spirits, as whipped wretches forced to work in chain gangs, bound together by cuffs of blood-soaked delusions and lies, driven on forced marches to die for the entertainment of Satan? Should we unwillingly forfeit all the precious days of our short lives so liars can build up their psychopathic hierarchies for demons? Or will we work hard in the day, freely sharing what we hold in stewardship for God’s purposes, and possibly even lay down our lives for His sake, and for our loved ones, even for all the rest of God’s creations? Should we not labour to build up just, equitable, families of God? If some love to worship Satan’s most unjust heirs, then let them build the hierarchical systems of capitalism, communism or fascism, so the devil’s most preferred psychopathic liars can exploit and enslave them, or send them to die in senseless wars, causing those dupes to pillage the blood-soaked corpses of the innocent for the wealth of their worshipped owners. But let the elect seek the freedom to love one another, and work for an abundant life which does the loving will of God, applying His real solutions to all our difficult problems, so we gain equity and justice for ourselves and our loved ones, the freedom to do good and honest works through love and in strength, never weakened by hunger and thirst. We never Page 1285
need to claim god-like ownership of anything in God’s vast kingdom, since all is the home of all, and all elect are heirs of all God’s created existence. God grants us the radiant light of heaven within, and He exposes the darkness of lies and delusions. So let the loving elect choose only the ways of Jesus.
In this parable of Jesus, He exposed the fallacy of His disciples’ thoughts. They somehow believed that their difficult and sacrificial labours on earth, as disciples of God, had all been for nothing, since the elect who did not work beside them during this life in the flesh were to receive exactly the same reward as them, after their earthly training ended. But all the works we do in the Landowner’s field on earth must be effectively completed for our loved ones and for our own sakes. So those works that we do in His name on earth are themselves a great reward, and we require no further pay for doing them. And there is no such thing as futile works for God. All His works bear fruit, but not for His own sake, because He has no needs. Thus, we prepare, sow, water and harvest His fields for our own profit, not for His gain. So there is never a moment we can call a waste of time, not if we are labouring for Him. Nevertheless, He grants us another reward at the end of the day, together with all who did not receive our great reward of having laboured in the hot earth’s sun for Jesus. And, since we receive a reward on earth, God is not unjust when He also grants another reward to all His elect children, the same that we receive, as we all enter heaven. Only a false impression of injustice, from the lying minds of Satan’s children, causes unwarranted anxiety about this, in order to steal our joy.
Jesus began His parable by saying, “For the kingdom of the heavens is likened to a person who owns an estate. The same went out early to hire workers for his vineyard. So he agreed with the workers, to send them out to work the day in his vineyard for a denarius” (Mat. 20:1-2, from: Ὁμοία γάρ ἐστιν
ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν ἀνθρώπῳ οἰκοδεσπότῃ ὅστις ἐξῆλθεν ἅμα πρωῒ μισθώσασθαι ἐργάτας εἰς
τὸν ἀμπελῶνα αὐτοῦ. συμφωνήσας δὲ μετὰ τῶν ἐργατῶν ἐκ δηναρίου τὴν ἡμέραν ἀπέστειλεν
αὐτοὺς εἰς τὸν ἀμπελῶνα αὐτοῦ, SBLGNT). Obviously, Jesus figuratively represented God with the landowner. For He was speaking about God’s “kingdom of the heavens” (plural), which includes both His earthly and His eternal properties. But His “vineyard” is clearly the earthly part of God’s kingdom. And, very early in history, God went out to hire workers for His earthly kingdom. In fact, God created and hired Adam and Eve, the very first human beings on earth, to do his works on earth, to tend the garden and take responsibility for the lives of all creatures on earth. When God did this, He agreed to provide an equitable wage for them, all that they might require to provide for all their needs in life, after their day of labour on the earth ended. And, as Jesus uttered these words, all His Jewish disciples would have recognized them as a common way of referring to each one’s lifetime of works for God, and would realize that these “wages” referred to God’s heavenly reward after death.
Also notice how Jesus used the verb ἀποστέλλω when He described how the landowner “sent out
[the workers] on a mission,” to labour in his vineyard. Thus, those workers were “apostles,” which is what Jesus called the disciples whom He sent out on missions, to work for His kingdom. Since that verb referred to mere hired farm labourers here, it definitely is not some kind of deeply sacred word designating a special status to those being sent. Nor does its noun cognate, ἀπόστολος, infer any kind of super-spiritual hero status. Rather, those whom God sends out to work in His earthly kingdom are merely common labourers who are taught, trained, called and employed by God. And such workers are free, not slaves, since He hired and paid them a wage they were able to keep for their own chosen purposes. And, because Jesus gave this parable to the same twelve disciples whom most humanistic churches falsely esteem so highly that they bow and pray to them, we must remember this attitude of Jesus towards them, assigning them to labour as equals to all His other labourers. In the eyes of the real Creator God, the twelve were just like the rest of us, and should not be esteemed more highly than any of God’s other elect children. This parable is actually teaching us about the equality of all.
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Now, in Israel, where this parable took place, they have a consistent 12 hours of daylight and 12
hours of darkness. So both the labourers and landowners would wake long before dawn, to get ready for the day. Before dawn, this landowner would have gone to the marketplace to find workers for his vineyard, and would have returned with them by dawn. Then he divided the workday into four three-hour shifts, and returned to the crowded marketplace before the end of the first shift. Then he also returned to hire more workers before the end of the second and third shifts. So each worker assumed he would be paid a quarter of a day’s wage for each shift (i.e., 25% of a denarius, or a sestertius for each shift, which was the equivalent of about $5.00 in the purchasing power of today’s American currency). Then, just an hour before the sun set and the day was over, the landowner made one last effort to find more workers. This was unusual, but he did find some. And those who worked only one hour expected to earn only one copper coin, or just enough to buy a loaf of bread. In those days, all the people knew these pay rates, and none would ever expect any landowner to pay more than this.
In this parable, each three-hour work shift in the vineyard represented a quarter of a lifetime working for God, as a disciple of Jesus, or about 15 years. So those who worked all four shifts were those who laboured for God throughout their lives. But those hired during the last hour would represent those who repented into the truth during the last few years of one’s life, not long before death, before being required to give an account to God on the judgment day. And that judgment day was sunset, when the workers would line up to receive their wage for their work. For the rabbis of that time would often liken the receiving of wages to symbolize God’s reward granted to His faithful elect on that last day, on the judgment day, after death and before entering eternal life in heaven. So, in this parable, Jesus spoke about all of His faithful elect servants throughout history, all who do his works.
Also, the twelve-hour workday could have two meanings. Primarily, it would represent the lifetimes of God’s workers on earth. So Jesus was illustrating how some elect enter His priesthood of Israel during their youth, and serve Him all their lives. Then others are called into the church later in life, some only in the last shift of their lives, and some only in their last hour, just before they die. But here that workday also represented the entire history of the earth, illustrating how He called elect souls to work for Him since the dawn of time on earth—labouring to provide justice, freedom, equity and love in His earthly kingdom, and how He will continue to call labourers until the end of time.
This was a brilliant parable, since Jesus spoke of many workers in one vineyard in one day, which was symbolic, in Jewish sermons and literature, of all God’s servants throughout the history of the world. Yet, at the same time, Jesus spoke of the pay given to each individual worker, to each who worked all four shifts, and to each who worked fewer shifts, or just one hour. To His Jewish disciples, this would symbolize the individual rewards for each elect soul who served Him for varying periods of time during their lives. And the latter was what His disciples were complaining about, thinking that God was unjust. For the context of this parable was Jesus teaching about how God Himself must do the impossible work of saving souls. Therefore, here Jesus implied that He grants the reward of eternal life in heaven to the elect who serve Him throughout their entire lives, but also grants exactly same reward of eternal heaven to the elect who repent into God’s service at the end of their lives. In fact, Jesus also implied that He would even grant eternal life in heaven to the elect who repented after death, on the judgment day at the gates of heaven, since the judgment day is actually the last day in which all humans live outside of heaven. In other words, here Jesus was telling us that He will grant eternal salvation to literally all the elect in the end, on that last day.
So, when Jesus gave this parable to His disgruntled disciples, whom He was training to become teaching and judging elders for His New Covenant branch of Israel, He used it to broaden the scope of their thinking, by addressing their irrational, humanistic thoughts. He illustrated the salvation of Page 1287
all the elect who have ever lived on this planet, and all who will ever live here, so they would know that salvation into eternal heaven, which was impossible for anyone to earn by good works, would surely will be granted by God to literally all the elect. God will save all the elect who ever lived throughout the history of the world, and some even at the last hour of humanity’s existence at the gates of heaven on the judgment day. His disciples knew Jesus was declaring this, which is why they grumbled. For they thought they were earning their salvation by their works for God, and assumed that those who did God’s works from youth would receive a much better home in heaven than those who laboured for God only during the last days of their lives. Then they assumed that those who did no good works in their entire lives should go to hell, even if God created their spirits in His image, with the potential ability to justly love Him and His creations. Their pride and humanistic views of class systems did not like the fact that God will gather literally all elect souls into the priesthood of His eternal heavenly church. But God is equitable and just, not like the humanists. So we all must stop thinking like the unjust humanists, and know that our works for God are themselves a reward.
Furthermore, if our earthly labours for God are a reward in themselves, because those works fulfill the desires of our spirits for love and abundant life, and because those works train us for eternal life in heaven, we will no longer do those works for false reasons. We will no longer do them for the utterly selfish reason of trying to earn a fictitious carnal concept of salvation invented by lying humanists. This understanding of salvation by God’s grace alone frees us to pursue the God-created longings of our elect spirits, without having to appease the demands of humanistic class systems and psychopathic wanna-be human gods. At the same time, this freeing truth makes us want to inform other elect souls about these saving works which Jesus can do in us, about how the Holy Spirit of Jesus can teach and train us to fulfill a just and godly kind of love, so we can gain an abundant life while we dwell on earth, and forever after. Once we know that Jesus will save literally all the elect, but also how the elect spirits whom He awakens and quickens while they live on earth will receive the additional reward of doing inwardly gratifying works for Him, we want everyone to know this.
After we realize that our works for Jesus will nullify the devil’s destructive works among us, then build up God’s just and loving kingdom on earth for the benefit of all His creations, we feel a very urgent need to educate every elect soul about our Saviour Jesus. That is, we want to evangelize in a truly biblical way, by teaching these truths of God. And we will also see that there can be no end to this kind of evangelism, to the teaching of truths to lost elect souls, no matter how old or how set in their ways the elect might be. And we will no longer practise a fake evangelism that was designed solely to increase the income and power of religious frauds, by trying to terrorize or trick others into saying a magic “Sinner’s Prayer” or taking a magic sacrament. And we will no longer believe that only those labouring for an invented humanistic kind of heavenly god from birth, because they were born into a fake church, will somehow be saved into a higher class of a supposed hierarchy existing in false heaven, while recent converts to that false religion will be assigned to lower classes, and all who rejected that fake church will go to hell. If we believe Jesus’ parable here, we will be freed to love and serve Him, free to work for all kinds of elect everywhere on earth, even for the pagan elect.
Here Jesus addressed the errant thoughts of His disciples. He showed them why they thought as they did, and why God is not unjust for being so generous as to grant a full and unrestricted eternal life in heaven to literally all His elect children. God’s unearned, unmerited grace is not something that any of them should ever complain about, but an equitable and just act that should earn Him great praise, straight from our hearts. Jesus told them how this landowner, representing God, equally rewarded the elect who came last, who did only one hour’s work and wasted their entire lives on earth, who did not do any works directly for their heavenly Father throughout their lives. Jesus declared: “So about Page 1288
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the eleventh [hour], having gone out, he found others standing [as the effect of not finding work].
Then he reasoned with them, ‘Why did you men stand here idle [as the effect of not finding work]
the whole of the day?’ They responded to him, ‘Because no one hired us.’ He reasoned with them,
‘Go, even you, into the vineyard.’” (Mat. 20:6-7, ALT). Now, surely, those who have searched for work, and have suffered the rejection of employers for extended periods of time, know that not being hired is not an enjoyable experience, to say the least. The tortuous anxiety felt by casual labourers who do not have a cent to feed their families or themselves is not something for which they should be further punished. And enjoying labour with friends, while being fed by the employer every three hours, is not nearly as bad as not being hired at all. This landowner, representing God, realized this.
Jesus was telling us that He, our God, does not give up on any of the elect who have not heard His call into eternal salvation. At the eleventh hour, when all are gathered for judgment on the last day of their lives outside of heaven, Jesus will call all who have never laboured in His name at any time in their entire lives. For we must notice who these workers were. They were those who had not given up and did not leave the marketplace, where workers were hired. Inwardly, they all remained hopeful that they might at least earn one loaf of bread to feed their hungry families. They stood the whole day waiting for a call, and still remained after all outward appearances of hope were gone. Most went to the marketplace before dawn, seeking landowners who also went there at the same time. And those labourers begged those landowners to choose them. But, by noon, most who had not been hired would assume there was no work for them that day, then wander off and find something else to do. And, by the eleventh hour, only the most desperate souls, those without a morsel of food to ease their inner hungering, would remain, hoping to earn enough to buy a meagre loaf of inferior barley bread. These represented the elect who have never heard Christ’s call, whose spirits hunger and thirst for righteousness, for the love and truth they cannot find in Satan’s world order. Yet God created their spirits in a way that never gives up or loses hope, even to the ends of their lives. Then, as their spirits find themselves standing at the gates of heaven on the judgment day, the Judge will ask them why their spirits stood idle, without working at spiritually and morally useful tasks during their lives.
So they will answer, proclaiming that their spirits always longed for the call to do exactly that, yet a call never came. No one came in Jesus’ name to afford them an opportunity to do God’s works. Only thieves offered them employment, in evil works of robbery and murder. But their honest and just hearts could not bear to work for those criminals. Thus, they simply waited for a call to do just works. Hearing this, the Judge and Owner of eternal heaven’s fruitful lands will tell them, “Go, even you, into the vineyard.” The spirits of the elect in unjust lands ruled by devils and their human thugs need never lose the hope of inwardly gratifying employment, to fulfill all their hearts’ desires, not even after the deaths of their earthly flesh. All their spirits desired all their lives will be granted.
Throughout history, God has employed workers to lovingly take responsibility for His people and His other living creatures in His earthly kingdom, as well as to tend His gardens there. So some kinds of work involved cleaning the pens of His livestock and casting their excrements over the roots of plants in His garden or in His vineyard. For those roots feed on that waste, and purify it, in the great harmony of His created life. So these kinds of workers may be classified as having the lowest status in humanistic systems, since their work is so unappealing to the flesh. But God sees that their work is just as essential as the works of all the others. And these may be likened to those who do the works of God involving everything from administering the money and resources of God’s kingdom on earth, to providing for the physical needs of the people, to keep them healthy, fed and housed.
After those workers clean and fertilize, God sends out workers to bring water to His people and His other living creations. This may be likened to the preachers and prophets who distribute the waters of Page 1289
truth gathered from the deep, pure wells and rivers of God. And those living waters from God’s good and reliable sources will always prove effective, will always refresh the living souls that drink them, and will always activate the biology of the ground and the roots, to restore life and vitality. While those workers do this, God also sends out men and women, armed with sharp pruning knives, to cut off the branches that continuously boast about their broad, green, self-serving leaves, but bear no fruit. God’s workers in justice systems will remove the self-indulgent who steal from the people and give nothing in return. Then those dead branches will be cast into the fire at the end of the day. In time, the clusters of grapes will ripen on the vines. So the Owner will send out evangelists to gather that fruit into vats for the harvest. And, when those vats are full, His angels will crush their earthly pride into godly sorrow and contrition, but remove all that is good in them, while straining out all the useless concepts invented by liars. Once this process is complete, that good inner juice is poured into individual vessels and carefully placed in a protected place. There those vessels will stand for a long day, lasting more than a hundred earthly lifetimes of productive discipleship. And it will ferment into the finest of wine, the kind that is able to warm and cheer any soul who will consume it in heaven.
There will be many kinds of workers in God’s vineyard of His earthly kingdom, where some will labour throughout their day on earth, but others will only enter into that labour after large parts of their day on earth has passed. Then some will be brought into the vineyard at the hour of pay and reward. Nevertheless, all will receive what is owed for the day of life on earth, but not according to any materialistic criteria. For Jesus told us: “So evening came. The lord of the vineyard said to his steward, ‘Call the workers and give the wages to them, beginning from the last until the first” (Mat.
20:8, from: ὀψίας δὲ γενομένης λέγει ὁ κύριος τοῦ ἀμπελῶνος τῷ ἐπιτρόπῳ αὐτοῦ· Κάλεσον τοὺς
ἐργάτας καὶ ἀπόδος αὐτοῖς τὸν μισθὸν ἀρξάμενος ἀπὸ τῶν ἐσχάτων ἕως τῶν πρώτων, SBLGNT).
And the wages for all were exactly the same, where the last received them first and the first last.
So this landowner, representing God, was very diligent, organized and deliberate in all he did. Most lazy landowners would have gone out to the marketplace only once, first thing in the morning, to hire workers. But this landowner went out five times, once for all four shifts, then once more for the last hour. After that, most landowners would let the workers line up in any way they wanted, with the strongest and most aggressive bullying their way into the front of the line. But this good landowner wanted the workers he hired last to be paid first. And he would have done this for three reasons: (1) Those hired later in the day would have been the most desperate for a wage, since they waited the longest to find employment, some even to the last hour of the workday. If they did not urgently need wages, they would have left the marketplace early, after not being hired first thing in the morning. So the landowner was being merciful when he paid the last-hired workers first, so they could leave first and go out to buy food for their hungry families. By saying that the landowner paid the last first, Jesus illustrated how God grants His blessings in compassionate and wise ways, by prioritizing His giving to those bearing the greatest needs.
(2) By paying the last first, he also allowed the workers who laboured longer hours to see how those who worked fewer hours were to receive exactly the same pay. And that pay was the standard wage for twelves hours of labour, which every worker expected to receive. But, if the landowner paid some who worked the most hours first, then later paid the same wage to some who worked fewer hours, then some of those who worked the most hours might have left the vineyard immediately after being paid. And this would mean that those men would only find out about the last workers receiving the same pay when the landowner could no longer explain his reasoning to them. Yet they surely would find out about this once they had returned to their village and to their homes, since the other workers would eventually tell Page 1290
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them. Then those who worked more hours would have felt cheated, since most would assume that their pay should have been based on a set rate for the number of hours worked, in the typical merit-based system of their humanistic society. However, those who felt cheated would not likely go to the landowner to complain. Instead, they would most likely remain bitter and gossip about the landowner, spreading malicious rumours about him, even though that landowner did indeed pay them their fair wage. So this also illustrates how God is wise.
It was much wiser to pay those who worked the least hours first, and openly, in front of all who worked more hours, so all their complaints could be immediately addressed by that landowner, and resolved before slanderous rumours might start to spread. An open and transparent administration is always the best practise, if it is practised by a wise, responsive, rational and just management with nothing to hide from anyone. If everyone knows what is happening, and why it is happening, then the good souls will silence the slander of the bad.
(3) Then the main reason for Jesus creating this allegory of a landowner who paid the last first, and all with the same wage, was to instruct His disciples about God’s heavenly reward.
In context, the landowner’s payment of the workers clearly represented the way our God will provide a reward of eternal heavenly life to literally all the elect who have ever lived on earth, and to demonstrate that God’s concept of equity is not like the supposed equity of the
“merit-based” humanistic systems. And, since God created all to function according to His ways and concepts, we should take His words to heart. Life on earth is not a competition to see who can bully the most siblings into submission, so one can steal from them and from God, so one can gain the biggest, best and most self-indulgent toys. Nor does God make some more intelligent, healthy, fit, educated and coordinated so they can use these attributes for selfish purposes, at the expense of others. Rather, God grants gifts to stewards whom He owns outright, so they will use those gifts for His equitable, just and loving purposes. Then we need to remember that our spirits live forever, but our flesh does not. So God will indeed judge our living spirits after the flesh dies, and hold all of us accountable for all we did with all He gave us. “To whomever much is given, of him will much be required; and to whom much was entrusted, of him more will be asked” (Luke 12:48b, WEB). This means that the unjust, inequitable, humanistic “merit-based” systems which exploit some so others can have excess will bring many souls into severe condemnation. What God expects from us is that those whom He makes able to do much will do much. And all their more intense, difficult, demanding works will be more gratifying to them, bringing them inner joy as an eternal reward for their spirits. Those able to do more need to seek only the treasures of fulfillment from those works, not excessive pay used for carnal self-indulgence. Every worker should be thankful for the opportunity to express love from one’s spirit through one’s works. So those called to serve Jesus first, and labour in His vineyard from youth, will indeed be glad to serve Him until the day their flesh dies. For their awakened spirits cannot die, nor will any of these sleep after death. Their loving and just spirits will go straight to the gates of heaven, where Jesus will teach and train them further, until they become so filled with light and joy that their love knows no limit. Then, when the earth ends and all the other dead awake, when all come to be judged at the gates of heaven, those first awakened and gleaming elect will labour on, ministering to the elect who had to sleep after an empty and fruitless life. Finally, when all the elect are ready, the last judged will enter heaven first, since they will be most eager to feed on the heavenly food they lacked on earth. Then the first to labour in the works of God will calmly enter heaven last, since their spirits feasted on real truths throughout their lives.
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Now some might think workers, such as those in Jesus’ parable, should be responsible and intelligent enough to see how this landowner was simply being generous, and did not cheat anyone. But human beings are never truly rational, wise and mature. None are, as can be clearly seen by anyone who has seen or studied any amount of real, objective history. So Jesus said that the first hired, after seeing how the landowner paid the last and most desperate workers the same wage that they received, did react foolishly: “And coming, the first thought that they will receive more. Then even they received the denarius again. So, after receiving [it], they murmured against the landowner, reasoning, ‘These, the last, did one hour, and you made them equal to us, who bore the burden of the day and the heat’”
(Mat. 20: 10-12, from: καὶ ἐλθόντες οἱ πρῶτοι ἐνόμισαν ὅτι πλεῖον λήμψονται· καὶ ἔλαβον τὸ ἀνὰ
δηνάριον καὶ αὐτοί. λαβόντες δὲ ἐγόγγυζον κατὰ τοῦ οἰκοδεσπότου λέγοντες· Οὗτοι οἱ ἔσχατοι μίαν
ὥραν ἐποίησαν, καὶ ἴσους αὐτοὺς ἡμῖν ἐποίησας τοῖς βαστάσασι τὸ βάρος τῆς ἡμέρας καὶ τὸν
καύσωνα, SBLGNT). The workers hired first thought the last were not equal to them. Why? In the eyes of God, who gave them health, strength and a calling to work for Him, all received all from Him and all were equal. Likewise, in God’s eyes, all are infantile sinners whose pride of the flesh took credit for all the gifts and resources which allowed them to do their works, but gave no credit to God who created, shaped and built them up into all they had become. If their spirits were awake, they would see that absolutely nothing which came from oneself alone could possibly make anyone superior or inferior to anyone else. So, if none are greater and none are less, then all deserve their needs to be met equally, or all deserve equal punishment. Those workers who entered the field of labour last, as well as their families, were just as hungry and needy as those who entered first. So why wouldn’t a good landowner pay all the same wage? But these truths were not considered by them, since their minds of covetous flesh preferred the unjust merit-based system of humanists.
Now most workers in those days, even the Jews who studied the Scriptures and should have known better, would bow before the “superior” psychopaths who exploited them, who plundered them to get rich, who never honestly earned even a cent of their massive wealth. Yet those same workers, by the training of humanistic propagandists, would also feel exceedingly offended and loudly complain about a peer, about another honest co-worker who was fortunate enough to meet an employer who paid workers according to God’s will, who showed compassion for workers needing to feed their hungry families. And those same Roman humanists still pervert justice today, in the same way. So now let us see how irrational, contradictory and foolish their thinking has been for centuries, and reject those lies, so we can rightly serve our Creator God Jesus. For the wealthy still easily deceive workers, so they can steal from them. With the religion of humanism fervently preached to all workers in all lands, the ruthless elite can still trick workers into feeling obligated to worship their own exploiters and praise those thieves for granting them the opportunity to be their victims, while those workers attack one another because they think the justice, equity and love of God are evil.
We need to understand that the economy of God’s earthly kingdom is not a humanistic economic system. For God’s system is equitable to all, but humanistic systems steal from the poor to make the rich richer. And God’s system does not acknowledge money as the only means of distributing goods and services, like humanists do. In fact, God declared that it is impossible to love and serve Him and Mammon at the same time. So God denounced money as an invention of the devil. Therefore, if one has much, like the landowner in Jesus’ parable, that one should give equitably. That one must give to each according to the needs of each, and ask each one to provide only what one is able to provide for the day. For that is what this wealthy landowner did, and that landowner represented God Himself.
Our God Jesus sends His true disciples, His genuine priesthood, to teach, guide, judge and labour in His lands, to apply His just, wise, truly equitable and loving truths for the good of all, and to nullify Page 1292
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the works of the devil’s humanistic systems. This is why, in this parable, Jesus told them that the landowner, who represents God, answered the disgruntled workers with this reasoning: “You who share much in common with me, I am not unjust to you. Did you not fully agree with me, the sum of a denarius? Take what [is] yours and go. So I am willing to give to this one, the last, as also to you.
Is it not lawful to do what I will with [whatever is] mine? Or [why] is your perception evil because I myself am usefully good [to him]?” (Mat. 20:13-15, from: Ἑταῖρε, οὐκ ἀδικῶ σε· οὐχὶ δηναρίου
συνεφώνησάς μοι; ἆρον τὸ σὸν καὶ ὕπαγε· θέλω δὲ τούτῳ τῷ ἐσχάτῳ δοῦναι ὡς καὶ σοί· οὐκ ἔξεστίν
μοι ὃ θέλω ποιῆσαι ἐν τοῖς ἐμοῖς; ἢ ὁ ὀφθαλμός σου πονηρός ἐστιν ὅτι ἐγὼ ἀγαθός εἰμι;, SBLGNT).
First notice, in the teaching above, how the landowner, representing God, addressed the complaining labourers with a vocative form of ἑταῖρος (“a person who has something in common with others and enjoys association, but not necessarily at the level of a φίλος or φίλη, comrade, companion, of a member of one’s group, fellow-member,” BDAG3). So Jesus here implied that God treats the people of the earth, especially those labouring for His kingdom, as those who share much in common with Himself, because: (1) God made human spirits in His own image and from the substance of His own Spirit (called His “breath” in the Bible), and (2) God is a working owner of His kingdom, who also labours ceaselessly in His own fields, all day and all night, without rest, for He needs none. Thus, although we labour only a little in His fields, beside Him, we share much in common with Him. And God is never too arrogant to admit His commonality with His people. In fact, God loves to often and openly proclaim this, especially to His beloved elect children, no matter how infantile they may be.
Then Jesus implied that His own elect call Him unjust. And they certainly do, frequently. Each one of us bitterly complains, like spoiled little children, whenever God disciplines us, or when God takes one of His souls from this earth on His planned and appointed day. We all feel that God treats us unjustly at times, although He is never actually unjust. On the other hand, those actually treating us unjustly are often the ones we love and praise the most. Look at those who supported Hitler and Trump. Although they all were all being severely exploited and harmed by those psychopaths, all the Churchians among them were extremely bitter against God when those criminals failed to build their racist, unjust, murdering empires to brutally trample every just soul on earth. So those fools who followed those lying, thieving, sexually exploiting and murdering enemies of God caused their own suffering and deaths through their own sins, and by partaking in the sins of those despots. Yet they blamed God for their own losses. And they refused the hear the true Landowner reason with them.
God spoke the absolute truth when he plainly declared, “I am not unjust to you.” So let us believe our honest God when He utters this to our spirits. Let us take the time to listen to His sound logic.
When we speak to God in prayer, we need to remember that it is always more profitable for us to listen than to speak. For God already knows what is in our hearts. So how much can our confused and error-prone minds, which do not truly know our own thoughts, actually inform God? However, God does want us to honestly and rightly assess our thoughts, to know ourselves as sinners, then arrange our inner thoughts into words and express our concerns to Him. But, since we do not know what is in our hearts, until we try to present the unsorted concepts that are wildly churning around in the minds of our spirits, He offers us His wise counsel, to help us sort out the lies from the truths, until we can think rightly. Then our spirits can express rational words through our minds of flesh.
And God wants us to express our thoughts to Him, for our own good, so we might discover exactly what we are actually thinking in our hearts, so we might realize just how stupid some of our thoughts actually are. When we express words that expose our false logic and fallacious reasoning, God does get angry. Rather, He waits until we are ready to learn from His rational and reasonable teachings.
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This is why, in this parable, Jesus said the landowner made sure the labourers who worked the most hours saw how he paid the same wage to those who worked the least hours. Here Jesus implied that God wants us to see all that He is doing, then pray directly to Him whenever we might think He is doing something wrong or in an unjust way. And, once He helps us sort out our inner thoughts and reveals why we are thinking them, He surely is willing to explain His reasons for doing all that He does, as to a friend, even if we are very angry with Him. If we take the time to hear and understand His explanations, we will always find that God is not wrong nor unjust. Rather, it is our own eye or perception of Him that is actually wrong or outright “evil.” Jesus illustrated this perfectly when He said the complaining labourers fully agreed to work for a denarius, which represents the reward of eternal life in heaven. And Jesus was right when He said the landowner, our God, had a legal right to pay all the other labourers the same wage, even those who worked only one hour. And that which is paid as wages legally belongs to those who earn it. But that which is paid through grace, to those who did not earn it, was also legally granted by the landowner, and legally belongs to all whom He gives it. A landowner has the legal right to give to whomever he chooses. In fact, if those wages were taxed, those who laboured the entire day would likely take home less than those who only worked one hour. For most of what the last labourers received would be counted as a gift, and not taxed. But all that the first labourers received was considered to be a wage, so all of it would be taxed. Still, the gift of being able to work is its own reward. So, even with a tax, all the labourers received as much.
Most humanistic states have tried, but seldom succeeded, to stop elect souls from giving away their own money and property through grace alone, as totally free gifts, without any implied or explicit obligations put on those receiving their gifts. For humanists believe in a “merit-based” system, where the most psychopathic thieves get the most and the most loving honest souls get the least.
Now some citizens in Satan’s world order are able to dupe the foolish elect into giving free gifts, or even their whole lives, to them. Then their lies can often make the elect distrustful and unloving towards some of their innocent siblings too. Other humanists also try to tax the poor in ways that are are actually a form of theft, because those taxes are used to keep exploiters and criminals wealthy, and very few of those illicitly wealthy pay their fair share of taxes. Then those liars refuse to use taxes to purchase desperately needed essentials for the needy, as God requires from all legitimate governments. Instead, to prevent their elite thieves from being justly taxed, they demand austerity measures which kill the poor. For those humanists want everyone to look down on the poor, to treat them as lower classes, as expendable subhuman parasites. Humanists that build merit-based systems to war against godly compassion, and extreme right-wing humanists love to proclaim that their own siblings, all whom they have beaten down into poverty, are lazy and deserve no mercy or recognition as equal family members in mankind. But Jesus’ description of God’s kingdom is nothing like that.
In God’s kingdom, those who work the hardest and longest receive no more than those who work lightly and only for a short time. Jesus clearly stated this principle in this parable. Fake humanistic churches often try to deny this fact. But here our God Jesus explicitly declared that all His elect, all whom He chooses to work in His kingdom, will receive the same wage in the end, which is eternal life in heaven. All who begin work first, who spend their entire existence on earth labouring for Him, will not receive a better wage than the chosen ones who labour for Him only during the last hour of their existence outside of their heavenly home, on the earth’s last day, when they go to the gates of heaven after death. And the reason for this is what Jesus previously implied, that all our earthly works for Him build up valuable treasures in our hearts. All our works for God during our earthly lives are themselves our joy and our reward. This is why none of the elect who labour in His fields would ever want to stand idle in the marketplace of Satan’s world order until their lives end on earth, Page 1294
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until they meet their Lord during the last “hour” on the judgment day at heaven’s gate. For all who do not labour in God’s field forfeit the truth and love their spirits could gain if they worked beside the wisely managed and justly loved servants of Jesus. Thus, those labouring all day in God’s field have lost nothing, but those hired last have lost much. So their equal pay makes up for that. And there never will be any such thing as earning a higher status in God’s kingdom, for we always will be equal siblings. There can be no class system in heaven, no wealthy lords arrogantly assuming their brothers and sisters should bow before them and serve their whims. Rather, even our Creator God will labour directly beside us there, as our Brother, Jesus. And all the elect will be equal under Him.
I know this is a difficult concept for many brainwashed elect to comprehend. And the non-elect can never even begin to understand it, since they belong to Satan’s world order, which only serves the loveless, where all that their spirits desire is to gain a higher status among others. Since the only reward a non-elect spirit hopes to achieve is to have the power to bully or kill enslaved souls like a god, that is the only wage they seek. So we must never allow the loveless to gain any kind of power, because they will rule foolishly through terrorism. But elect spirits are able to learn to love. So we seek out those able to love, and grant them positions of decision-making authority, where they rule through a cooperative sharing of information, wisdom and strengths. That is, our “kings” or ruling authorities must be the loving, wise, honest, merciful, compassionate and strong souls God chooses.
The elect can know the joy of expressing love, of becoming a wise servant of all the living creatures in God’s kingdom, even the animals and plants. The elect can know the joy of seeing life thrive due to the works of their hands. So they are able to receive the truth that Jesus emphatically proclaimed in this parable, and comprehend what the landowner and the workers did. Jesus is able to reason with their elect spirits, affirm that the ambitions of their spirits should be the same as His desires, and not pursue what the non-elect and their father seek. Although the devil’s world order teaches elect minds of flesh to lust after status and wealth, then rules over elect flesh with his invention of money, let all the elect realize that the life God created will die if they follow those delusions. Since God Himself ordained all existing truth and reason, it is only rational for us to trust the logic and wisdom of Jesus.
Before Jesus presented this parable, He proclaimed that the last will be first and the first will be last (Mat. 19:30). Then He gave us this parable to illustrate exactly what He meant when He said it. And, at the end of that parable, Jesus ensured that the elect disciples would realize that His parable did explain exactly how the first will be last and the last will be first. For, at the end of the parable, Jesus once more emphatically proclaimed that same teaching again: “In this way the last will be first and the first last” (Mat. 20:16, from: οὕτως ἔσονται οἱ ἔσχατοι πρῶτοι καὶ οἱ πρῶτοι ἔσχατοι, SBLGNT).
Here, when Jesus used the future tense of the linking verb (ἔσονται, “will be”), He indicated that this parable was about His future reward, which all the elect will receive after their flesh dies. In context, Jesus used this parable to illustrate what His faithfully labouring disciples would receive at the final restoration of all the eternal spirits who ever dwelt on earth, on the day that He shall seat Himself upon His glorious eternal throne in heaven, when He will teach and judge all the elect who have ever lived, at that hour when all His true workers receive the wage of eternal life (see Mat. 19:28-29). So the “first” hired to work in His vineyard, in the kingdom of God on earth, are His faithful disciples who serve Him from the days of their youth. Yet these shall be the “last” to receive an eternal home in heaven. That is, those who laboured longest on earth, whose spirits do not sleep after death, whose spirits remain awake with Jesus at the gates of heaven after death, will pass through the gates of heaven last. For they will labour with Jesus at the gates of heaven after death, helping to feed and prepare elect spirits who enter those lands at those gates after them, training them for life in heaven.
The spirits of Adam, Abraham, Moses and Elijah waited at the gates of heaven in their new spiritual Page 1295
bodies, walking beside Jesus, to serve the twelve apostles after they cast off their earthly flesh. And they and the twelve wait for us now, for all the elect who have learned to love well, to help Jesus complete us. Then, when the angels wake all the sleeping elect, we shall all help them enter into the light of God. But those elect spirits who come last to the gates of heaven had hungered for, but had learned so little real truth during their lives on earth, that they will be most eager to enter the homes waiting for them on the mainlands of heaven. So, when the gates open, those last shall enter first.
Then the first, those who have always remained awake and have never needed to sleep, will rejoice as they watch their last elect brothers and sisters, who never knew the joys of labouring for Jesus through the compelling love of their spirits, will enter their spiritual homes last. And being the last to enter heaven’s mainland will be a great reward for labouring so long on earth, a treasure of the heart.
So the “first” who are last refers to the first who receive the blessed inner treasures of being able to express joyful love through the hard labours of their flesh on earth. And the emptiness of Satan’s world order cannot touch them, not while God manages their spirits in ways that prevent their inner desires from becoming unemployed. So these loving and serving elect will gladly be the last to gain their final wages in heaven, since their spirits will be the most joyful and satisfied, because these will have always been doing fulfilling works on earth, and even greater works at the gates of heaven. All these will look in joy on their once-empty, now-full brothers and sisters entering heaven first, after those last awakened elect find all they had not found on earth, at last. So the last who are first are last because they never had what the first to serve Jesus had, although they will receive their wages of entry into heaven first, and gain the very same equitable wages as the first to serve God. Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah, with all the other prophets and apostles, were these first ones, the kind who spent their lives serving God, who now remain awake after death, to serve new arrivals at heaven’s gate, and will rejoice in being the last to descend upon the New Jerusalem. Now many more lifelong labourers for God have joined them as well. All these elect spirits ever desired was to see that glorious day, when their family will be gathered together, freed from all the lies and delusions that once divided them on earth. Thus, in this parable of Jesus, there is absolutely nothing negative or threatening, once it is understood in context, in the way our God Jesus wanted us to understand it.
One last thing should be addressed. In some early Greek texts, such as the fifth-century Ephraemi Rescriptus, it adds this statement: “For many are called yet few [are] elect ones” (Mat. 20:16b, from: πολλοὶ γὰρ εἰσιν κλητοί ὀλίγοι δὲ ἐκλεκτοί, Textus Receptus, et al.). And this statement implies that God is the one who does this calling, but God will choose only a few of these to be His “elect ones,”
to whom He will grant the reward of eternal salvation into heaven. Yet, in the most reliable ancient texts (such as the fourth-century codices Sinaiticus and Vaticanus), this last statement is not found.
So, should we include this statement in our exegesis of verse 16, or not? I do not think we should, because it makes absolutely no sense in this context, unless one drastically distorts Jesus’ intended meaning of His parable. I, and others, suspect this statement was inserted by an Aristotelian-leaning or Pelagian scribe, since that sect of humanism believed salvation is achieved solely through the will of man, because their very little, impassive, heavenly god had no will nor power to effectively call anyone into salvation. Their religion was much like that of modern Evangelicals, where the majority of their preaching is about the greatness of man, although the add a little about a disinterested god invented by man. However, the real Creator God, the God who maintains all existence in real time, the God who is literally omniscient and omnipotent, the God who cannot possibly make any kind of mistake at any time, is able to effectively call every elect spirit into eternal life. God is not able to create an elect spirit for heaven, then accidentally lose that spirit to eternal damnation because a supposedly greater power of Satan overcame His will and the will of that infantile elect spirit. With Page 1296
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the God of the Bible, literally all whom He calls into the third heaven’s eternal life, all whom He has elected, logically must be predestined for eternal salvation, even from the moment He created time on earth. For, as previously mentioned, He created all earthly time in one moment of spiritual time.
And He could not possibly do otherwise, since He is omnipotent and omniscient. Since the earth has entropy, all its time logically must have been created at once, and all in its time must be predestined.
Also, since all order dissipates into inert uniformity, all must have been ordered from the beginning.
Many versions of the Bible include a somewhat loose translation of that Greek phrase, something like: “For many are called, but few are chosen” (Mat. 20:16b, WEB). And this interpretation is even worse, since it translates the implied linking verb and plural noun (ἐκλεκτοί), into the phrase, “are chosen.” This might be an honest translation, if the context clearly indicated they “are chosen ones.”
But most seem to deliberately translate it this way, so that readers might assume the phrase “are chosen” is the verb “choose” in the past passive voice. Then most would take the passive verb to be a theological passive, implying that God calls many, but chooses only a few, or that He only chooses only a few of the many souls He calls to work for Him in His kingdom on earth. It seems they want to assume the landowner (representing God) went to the marketplace (representing the population of the world) and called many workers to gather around him, but chose only a few of the most willing and able-bodied men to work in his vineyard (representing God’s church, or other workers for His kingdom on earth). Then he paid only a chosen few the wage of eternal life at sunset. And their assumption of this merit-based system obviously contradicts Jesus’ main point, which teaches us that all God’s elect will receive the same wage of eternal life. Also, in Jesus’ parable, that landowner seemed to take literally everyone he called, without rejecting one, and did not stop calling workers until the last hour, where that “last hour” must refer to the last day of our lives outside of heaven, that is, to the judgment day. And the landowner even rebuked the last workers when he commanded them to go to work in his vineyard (i.e., in 20:11, ὑπάγετε is a second person plural imperative). So His parable implies that those hired in the “last hour” were the lost elect who never served God on earth. Thus, Matthew 20:16b contradicts the parable and makes no sense. So, I will not exegete it.
Now some may point out that exactly the same statement is made in Matthew 22:14: “For many are called ones but few [are] elect ones (πολλοὶ γάρ εἰσιν κλητοὶ ὀλίγοι δὲ ἐκλεκτοί, SBLGNT). And that is likely where these humanistic scribes found this text, then inserted it into Matthew 20:16b.
However, in the context of the parable in chapter 22, this statement meant something completely different than it does in chapter 20. In chapter 22, this statement is not talking about God Himself calling those “many.” Rather, in chapter 22, God’s servants are the ones who call those many. We call others to a banquet, that is, to feast upon truths of God in His true church. We do this according to God’s command, yet it is us, humans, who make the unwise choice of calling some non-elect into the church which belongs to God (i.e., remember, the parable in Mat. 22:2-14 is talking about His true Israel in the last days, not about a church invented by citizens of Satan’s world order). After men call those non-elect into the true church, God Himself comes and casts those non-elect out from His church, all who refuse to wear His freely granted garments of righteousness. All who refuse to do any just and compassionate works of God in His true church, all the non-elect who refuse to express the kind of love which God grants only to the spirits of His elect children, are not allowed to belong to His true eternal church, which will forever serve His heavenly creations, working alongside Him.
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“As Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, He took the twelve disciples aside, and on the way He said to them, ‘Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn Him to death, and will hand Him over to the Gentiles to mock, to scourge, and to crucify; and the third day He will be raised up.’
“Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came to Him with her sons, kneeling and asking a certain thing of Him. He said to her, ‘What do you want?’ She said to him, ‘Command that these, my two sons, may sit, one on Your right hand, and one on Your left hand, in Your Kingdom.’ But Jesus answered, ‘You don’t know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?’
They said to Him, ‘We are able.’ He said to them, ‘You will indeed drink My cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with, but to sit on My right hand and on My left hand is not Mine to give; but it is for whom it has been prepared by My Father.’
“When the ten heard it, they were indignant with the two brothers. But Jesus summoned them, and said, ‘You know that the rulers of the nations lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you, but whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant. Whoever desires to be first among you shall be your bondservant, even as the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many’” (Mat. 20:17-28, WEB).
Jesus was still completing His training of these twelve disciples, preparing them to be teaching and judging elders for His New Covenant branch of His church. And the amount of time He planned to remain with them was nearing an end. In three short predestined years, Jesus had brought them to the point where they were almost able to discern between God’s truth and all the false religious precepts invented by human minds of flesh. They needed to be able to do this, at least well enough for their minds of flesh to allow their elect spirits to actually hear and heed the words of His utterly holy Spirit. And they soon would be able to discern between God’s truth and men’s lies, once they had seen how their much-trusted, but humanly ordained, priesthood of the church treated Jesus. After they saw their most renowned Levitical priests, scholars, rabbis and other religious authorities of Israel smile as they handed Jesus over to the psychopathic Romans, they would understand that those
“good men” were not so good. And, after the Romans mocked the loving Jesus, whipped His back with barbed cords until His torn flesh hung like bloodied rags, then nailed Him to the wooden beams of a cross until He died of pain and suffocation, they would see how the Hellenistic Jews, who were very busy syncretizing doctrines of Greco-Roman humanism with biblical teachings, were not great intellectuals, like they thought they were. Soon His disciples would see how stupidly ugly all were.
Their serving, healing, wise, loving Messiah, whom God sent and who was God in a body of flesh, was working hard to remove their faith in fleshy, false doctrines of men. And this impossible task would soon be completed enough for their elect spirits to grow exponentially in their discipleship, in a far better way. For, once they stopped trusting in man, once they no longer esteemed and served sinful men through a worship that should be reserved for God alone, His Spirit could then directly counsel their spirits. But, for now, Jesus had to keep on warning them about what the false church of Israel would do to Him, how the fakes among His loving elect would soon expose their true selves.
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So, when the time of His brutal betrayal would finally play out, their minds of flesh would remember His warnings. Since He warned them ahead of that time, then, after seeing the selfish ambitions and evil intentions of their esteemed religious guides exposed, their minds of flesh would understand that all was ordained, all seen ahead of time, by their God in Jesus. Knowing it all came to pass by the will of God would help their irrational, emotional minds of flesh more readily accept and process that tragedy. For they would see how Jesus caused all to happen to Himself, for their sakes. Then, as their minds of flesh recovered from the shock—not only from seeing their Messiah’s cruel death, but also from the realization that the highly trusted men who ruled their church actually despised God and warred against His just, loving truth—their flesh would free their spirits to fully trust in Jesus’
Holy Spirit, and in His Spirit alone. The delusion that God raised up men as great “leaders,” whom they needed to follow as servile worshippers, would burn away in the light of truth. Then the eyes of their infantile spirits would know, with certainty, that all are wretched sinners worthy of death, that the only head of every man must be God, Jesus. Otherwise, vile sinners would rule all through lies.
Now Jesus was leading His disciples back to Jerusalem for the last time, knowing He would soon be murdered there, then rise to life there, even ascend into heaven, then return in His flesh to rule over all the earth. So His focus on training His core disciples to be teaching elders intensified. But, at this point, they remained near their homes in Galilee, probably in Capernaum. So it seems that two of the disciples, James and his younger brother John, went to visit their parents there. Then their mother went with them when they returned to Jesus. And, like most mothers, she was extremely proud of her sons. So, wanting to show them just how much she thought of their intelligence and integrity, she approached Jesus and likely began to brag about them, so Jesus would know just how “lucky” He was to have them with Him ... oh yes, and how God blessed Him by letting them be His disciples.
Then she prostrated herself before Him. So Jesus knew she was about to ask Him to do something for her sons. But she must have paused to gather her courage, unsure if she was being presumptuous.
Still, seeing her love for her sons, Jesus respectfully asked her, “What are you wanting?” And their mother did not exactly know what she wanted, other than a general assurance that her sons would be firmly established in fulfilling and successful careers, within this Messiah’s kingdom—which she assumed would be like any other earthly kingdom, but more just and Jewish. So she asked: “Please say that these two sons of mine might be seated in Your kingdom, one at your right and one at your left” (Mat. 20:21b, from: Εἰπὲ ἵνα καθίσωσιν οὗτοι οἱ δύο υἱοί μου εἷς ἐκ δεξιῶν σου καὶ εἷς ἐξ
εὐωνύμων σου ἐν τῇ βασιλείᾳ σου, SBLGNT). She wanted Jesus to tell her that He liked her sons, that He would take care of them, even give them esteemed and worthy positions in His royal court.
Jesus would have seen this mother’s concern, and expected her to think like this. But James and John seem to have also been standing there and agreeing with their mother. They also appeared to think His kingdom would be an earthly kingdom, like the others in Satan’s world order. So Jesus answered all three of them with these words of warning: “You people did not consider the effects of what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup which I am about to drink?” (Mat. 20:22, from: Οὐκ οἴδατε
τί αἰτεῖσθε· δύνασθε πιεῖν τὸ ποτήριον ὃ ἐγὼ μέλλω πίνειν;, SBLGNT). Now Matthew had wisely told us, immediately before he wrote about this incident, how Jesus warned them that He was about to be murdered by the church leaders and Romans, then would rise from the dead. So this was the context in which Jesus said all this. In other words, the “cup” Jesus was “about to drink” was His tortuous death. Jesus was asking if they were able to die at the hands of His enemies. Far from assuring this mother that her sons would live a long life of high esteem on earth, Jesus was saying that her sons may be murdered by His enemies, just as He was about to be murdered. This was a risk they had to take. Still, no one could actually choose to die in the same way Jesus did, willingly for Page 1299
the sakes of others. That is always God’s choice, and His alone. Yet, whether or not God’s enemies murdered them, Jesus would surely take His elect brothers to sit beside Him in His eternal kingdom.
Nevertheless, the mother of these sons of Zebedee, together with James and John themselves, all said as one, “We are able” (Δυνάμεθα). Clearly, those two core disciples had no idea what Jesus meant, even after all Jesus had taught them. Neither realized that the kingdom of God is not of this world order, is nothing like any of the kingdoms belonging to Satan. Neither God’s kingdom on earth nor His kingdom above will ever allow any kind of hierarchy, where personal careers can advance to the top. All Jesus offered was an eternal life of joy, beginning while they remained alive on earth. He would never offer them any kind of hellish life, as esteemed officials in an earthly kingdom, where they would need to watch their backs day and night, lest their “inferiors” might stab them there, in an attempt to steal their rank and wealth. Since Jesus is loving and utterly holy, He condemned every possible kind of hierarchy, and never permitted one sibling to esteem himself above another sibling.
Still, Jesus knew that James would be the first of the twelve to be killed. Herod Agrippa would send soldiers to cut him down with the sword (Acts 12:1-2). So James would indeed drink the cup of death that Jesus was about to drink. But his younger brother, John, lived until about AD 98, until he was probably in his late 80’s. And John likely died of old age (although some traditions say false Jews murdered him). So the only way John was “able to drink the cup” of death that Jesus drank on the road to Gethsemane, was through a natural death in his old age. And John’s natural death, after sacrificing his entire adult life to serve Jesus and His kingdom on earth, was obviously included with the kinds of deaths that are counted as drinking the cup that Jesus drank. For Jesus, who knew the future, then answered them by saying: “On the one hand, you [both] will drink My cup. On the other hand, to sit at My right or left is not Mine to give, but rather for those each having been effectively prepared by My Father” (Mat. 20:23, from: Τὸ μὲν ποτήριόν μου πίεσθε, τὸ δὲ καθίσαι ἐκ δεξιῶν
μου καὶ ἐξ εὐωνύμων οὐκ ἔστιν ἐμὸν δοῦναι, ἀλλ’ οἷς ἡτοίμασται ὑπὸ τοῦ πατρός μου, SBLGNT).
In the above quote, the verb πίεσθε is a second person plural future form of πίνω (“drink”). So Jesus was saying that, at some time in the future, both James and John would drink the cup He was about to drink. That is, both would sacrifice their bodies of flesh in service to God and His creations. But the cup of Jesus also included His resurrection from the dead. Therefore, both would also live after their bodies died, first at heaven’s gates, then in heaven’s mainland. They were not the kind of elect who would sleep until the judgment day. Rather their spirits would remain awake after their bodies of flesh were replaced with new bodies, just as Jesus lives now. Their spirits are with Jesus, thinking and actively working with Him and for Him, waiting at heaven’s gates for the very last day of earth’s existence, for the final harvest of all spirits and souls who have ever lived upon the earth. All the loving and awake elect souls who came before them are with Jesus and those two now, as well as all the awakened elect who lived on earth since they died. All these, together with Jesus, are serving one another there, growing in the light of God through their continuing discipleship with Jesus, our God.
Also, in the above quote (Mat. 20:23), Jesus contrasted His second statement with His first statement by using the two particles (... μὲν ... δὲ ...). So He was saying that, “on the one hand” James and John would drink of His cup, but “on the other hand” He did not have the power nor the authority to determine whether they would “sit at [His] right or left.” He said that kind of decision “is not Mine to give.” This means that Jesus, our Judge on the last day, will not determine who will enter heaven and who will go to hell. Rather, God the Father already determined this from the beginning, by His creation of some elect spirits in human flesh and by allowing Satan to create some non-elect spirits in human flesh. From the beginning, literally all the potentially loving elect were predestined to be Page 1300
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completed and perfected on the judgment day, so all could enter heaven. Then all the loveless non-elect were predestined to forever possess only the darkness of their delusions in their home of hell.
Thus, the only role left for a biblical kind of Judge on the last day will be to teach and train the elect for their repentance into all truth, so they might all become fit to enter heaven. Jesus will indeed be our Judge on the judgment day, and shall surely complete and perfect all the elect on that day. Then Jesus reiterated this teaching, saying that, whether one will sit on one side or the other, is a task that has already been determined by His heavenly Father. To sit on either side of Jesus is not for Him to decide, “but rather for those each having been effectively prepared by My Father.” In the global context of all Scriptures, the dative plural pronoun here (οἷς, “for those”) indicates all who will go to the judgment, all human beings who lived on earth throughout all history. But the verb Jesus used to indicate how all will be chosen for a position on His right or left side (ἡτοίμασται) is a third person singular perfect passive indicative form of ἑτοιμάζω (“prepare, provide all that is needed to make ready”). Now the perfect tense emphasizes effects, and should be translated “prepared with effect” or
“effectively prepared.” So, with the preceding pronoun, this passive verb form can be translated as something like: “for [each] one it has been effectively made ready.” This passive form suggests that God the Father has already completed this effective preparation, since Jesus specifically said it was done “by My Father” (ὑπὸ τοῦ πατρός μου). And this singular form, in the way Jesus constructed this sentence, seems to imply that His Father prepared each individual through His actions. Each person’s relative position to Jesus is “for those each having been effectively prepared by My Father.”
When Jesus stands in heaven’s glory as our revealed God, Creator and Judge, He will do all of the personal teachings of His judgments as one Person of God, in one kind of relationship to the elect spirits whom God the Father individually created in His image from His very “breath,” from the very substance of His Spirit. In that role, as that particular Person of God, Jesus will serve His Father’s elect children as their oldest Brother, who works alongside them and among them. And each one of those elect will have been effectively created and caused to become whatever kind of heavenly child that God the Father predestined each to become. Yet none of the elect will be created to stand on the left side of Jesus, when He sits on His throne. Only the non-elect will be herded to the left side of His throne. For we are told that “He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left”
(Mat. 25:33, WEB). And all the goats represent the non-elect spirits created by Satan. Now James, John and their mother had asked Jesus to place one brother on His left and the other on His right, once He was established on His throne. But their words inadvertently referred to the judgment day, since that is the only time when Jesus shall grant souls to be positioned either on His right or on His left, when souls will either go to heaven or to hell. Because this is what they unwittingly implied by their words, through the way they worded their question, they did not know what they were saying.
By the way, some versions of Bible add that these brothers were not only to drink the cup of Jesus’
death and resurrection, but also would “be baptized with the baptism that [Jesus is] baptized with”
(see Mat. 20:23, cf., v. 22). Now the most reliable texts do not include these clauses about sharing in Jesus’ baptism, neither in verse 22 nor in verse 23. Codices like the Sinaiticus and Vaticanus do not have those clauses. For John’s baptism of Jesus cannot be shared, because Jesus was baptized as the one and only eternal High Priest over the priesthood of all the elect, over the eternal church of Israel, over the true church which shall exist forever in heaven. And all human high priests symbolized the how Jesus would become the eternal High Priest of all Israel, because God commanded them all to go to a certain kind of baptism, symbolizing how the Messiah would die and rise again as their true High Priest. So no one in heaven or on earth can possibly “be baptized with [John’s] baptism that
[Jesus was] baptized with.” That is an utter impossibility. But it seems that some scribes copied those Page 1301
clauses about baptism from Mark 10:38-39. But, in that passage, Jesus was actually talking about the common Jewish symbolism of a baptism for renewal, which is the same symbolism used in all the New Covenant Scriptures. Mark added those clauses about baptism because immersing under the water symbolized a death to self, while rising up out of the water symbolized a rising up or being resurrected into a new, clean life lived for God. Jesus also made reference to this universal Jewish symbol of baptism’s death and resurrection in Luke 12:50. And teachings of Jesus no doubt included many references to a Jewish bathing ritual that they often call the mikveh or simply the immersion, as a symbol of dying to a carnal life and rising into a new life where one’s spirit heard and heeded God.
Now, when Jesus told James and John that they would both drink His cup, those words must have been heard by one or more of the ten other disciples in their group of twelve. And soon the other disciples, all those being trained to be selfless teaching elders, heard about it. So the other disciples began to feel what Matthew described with the verb ἀγανακτέω (“indignant against what is assumed to be wrong,” BDAG3). And surely Matthew knew exactly how they felt, because he was one of those ten men standing there that day. So, when the other disciples heard what Jesus said to James and John, they thought Jesus was saying something wrong, and they were indignant about this “sin”
Jesus committed by saying it. Yet the others disciples clearly did not realize that Jesus was actually telling James and John that they would share in His death and resurrection, and they were just as ignorant of the intended meaning as the mother of James and John. Of course, in those days, being permitted to drink from the cup of one’s king, lord or rabbi signified a very higher status in the eyes of that ruler, a position of power and authority almost equal to one’s superior. And this is what the mother of James and John had actually wanted from Jesus. She wanted Jesus to give her sons a high position like this in His coming kingdom, and assumed that the earthly kingdom of God would be just like the other kingdoms on earth. Likewise, the other ten also assumed the same, and thought Jesus had indeed granted those two a higher status among them, leaving the rest of them in inferior positions, possibly requiring them to bow before those two brothers, as was done in pagan kingdoms.
And this seemed arbitrary and unjust, because they all worked just as hard as those two, possibly harder. So why did Jesus suddenly decide to promote them? Did their mother convince Jesus that they were superior to the rest? Or, worse yet, did their mother bribe Jesus to promote them like this?
Many irrational and slanderous thoughts began to pop into their angry little minds of flesh, because their proud flesh had misinterpreted the words of Jesus in an unbiblical and worldly way. Due to their false assumptions, they felt unjustly lowered to an inferior status within a delusional perception of a fictitious hierarchy which they mistakenly thought their Messiah had come to establish. But, in the reality God created and predestined, Jesus did not promote James and John, and no hierarchy in the Messiah’s New Covenant kingdom would ever exist, nothing where only an elite few would be permitted to drink from the cup of the King. Their oldest Brother Jesus would always be the personal Teacher and God of each individual, the one and only Head of each man, even for all eternity. Then literally all the elect who ever lived on earth, together with all who ever will live until the end of earthly time, will indeed drink from the cup of Jesus, all in precisely the same way, as brothers and sisters with exactly the same status in both of God’s kingdoms, earthly and heavenly. The differences between individuals will never be things that infer status. None will ever be granted the power to command others to serve and obey them. Rather, each will serve and obey our God Jesus, and Him alone, in a way where all bear an equal status. Yet each also will be granted unique aptitudes and skills, each according to what one’s spirit in one’s heart was created to inherently desire. So each will perform different tasks in heaven, although none shall ever earn any kind of higher status; since all their abilities and resources will have originated from God, and all their strengths and skills will Page 1302
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function in real time through God’s grace and power alone. There can never be any such thing as a hierarchy of upper and lower statuses among humans in heaven, because all are one with God. All will do all their works through motivating, just, pure love, never through selfish ambitions or greed.
Seeing the other ten fretting and complaining, all feeling terribly indignant because they were not promoted to the same imagined high status that they falsely assumed James and John had just been granted, Jesus called a meeting of all twelve, to once more explain that God’s kingdom was nothing like the kingdoms belonging to Satan’s world order. Again, Jesus proclaimed: “You [disciples] know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them and the great ones exercise decision-making authority down upon them. It will not be that way among you. Rather, whoever might resolve to become great among you, he will be your household slave. And whoever might resolve to be first, he will be your owned slave. Just in this way, the Son of mankind came not to be served by household slaves, but rather to serve as a household slave, and to give His soul [as] a ransom for many” (Mat. 20:25-28, from: Οἴδατε ὅτι οἱ ἄρχοντες τῶν ἐθνῶν κατακυριεύουσιν αὐτῶν καὶ οἱ μεγάλοι κατεξουσιάζουσιν
αὐτῶν. οὐχ οὕτως ἔσται ἐν ὑμῖν· ἀλλʼ ὃς ἂν θέλῃ ἐν ὑμῖν μέγας γενέσθαι ἔσται ὑμῶν διάκονος, καὶ
ὃς ἂν θέλῃ ἐν ὑμῖν εἶναι πρῶτος ἔσται ὑμῶν δοῦλος· ὥσπερ ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου οὐκ ἦλθεν
διακονηθῆναι ἀλλὰ διακονῆσαι καὶ δοῦναι τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ λύτρον ἀντὶ πολλῶν, SBLGNT).
Satan and his citizens preach all kinds of lies about false courage, fake nobility and greatness. Then they dutifully lie about their rulers and so-called “great” ones, especially those who lived a cruel, self-indulgent, sinful life and die with big piles of money in grand homes, but with even far greater heaps of God’s condemnation, which they laboured hard to place upon their souls. There is nothing that demonic spirits like better than to hear a glowing eulogy for one of their favourite human gods at a massive funeral, or to see that puppet’s parasitic flesh rot in an expensive grave. Yet the loving awakened elect soon realize that neither God nor their own spirits will ever allow them to live like those foolish, ignorant and empty human husks. The elect cannot live under the rule of self-serving, lying, bullying, useless, self-exalting elite wretches, who continuously beat them into submission and force them to become whipped and starving slaves of the devil, so only their most evil works can buy their flesh any kind of relief, or self-indulgent luxuries stolen from other slaves and God’s creation. The elect need to serve God, God’s people and all God’s creation. Just as Jesus came to serve us, like a wise and frank domestic slave who spoke and did all He could for the good of those whom He served, we also serve. And note, Jesus came to serve as a slave who healed common folk, especially those who love in a just, equitable way, through the inherent nature of their elect spirits.
When Jesus declared: “It will not be that way among you” (οὐχ οὕτως ἔσται ἐν ὑμῖν), these words expressed His intractable, almighty will as our God. For Jesus is our Creator, whose will is one with the wills of our heavenly Father and His Holy Spirit. Yes, God may be three Persons interacting with us. But He is one God, with one mind and one will. So none exist who are able to thwart His will, nor even hinder His will from being effectively fulfilled. His will is always done. Therefore, no matter how much some elect try to serve selfish ambitions, they will utterly fail, both on this earth and at the gates of heaven. The power of God, who set all existence in its predestined path from the beginning, who knows all hearts and minds, will surely cause His own beloved children to destroy their own lives on earth, if they do not love the truth, if they prefer to believe the lies of Satan and attempt to “lord it over” other souls, if they ever try to “exercise decision-making authority down upon them” (i.e., the verb κατεξουσιάζω implies a tyrannical and oppressive kind of authority, the kind that is exerted “down upon” inferiors, to force submission). If any elect soul seeks the delusion of greatness in any of Satan’s subject kingdoms, and strives to become esteemed as a lord and human god of other human souls, or seeks authority to command his or her own whims and ignorant desires Page 1303
to be obeyed by subservient siblings forced to bow in submissiveness, that kind of evil will not be tolerated by that elect one’s heavenly Father. God will discipline that elect one’s flesh with all kinds of inner and outer pains. That elect one’s mind of flesh will suffer mental, emotional and physical torment, until one repents into a loving and just life of serving God, His people and His creations. As for the non-elect, who instinctively seek that god-like kind of power, their fate is far worse. Not only will the non-elect live in constant fear, but they will dwell forever in the darkness of those delusions.
All the true elect need a humble life of service to become inwardly content and full of joy. That is the way it always has been and always will be on this earth. This is a created law and truth of God which never will change, which will be forever and invariably upheld by the will and power of our loving and almighty God. We will never see any of God’s true elect become extremely wealthy autocrats in Satan’s kingdom of the world order, not in any institutions belonging to that devil. For God never allows His children to rule by terrorizing His living creations into blind obedience, never lets the elect force others to bow before them and serve their human wills. God always grants His children the right to question even His own will, then patiently waits for them to finish their ignorant rants, so He can quietly teach them the truth which corrects their erroneous thoughts. Therefore, God will not ever grant a human being the power to demand unquestioning authority, when He does not grant that kind of despotic authority even to Himself. Rather, God’s children must rule in the way God rules.
If we look at our God Jesus, and how all the Scriptures portray the rule of God, we soon realize that God has always ruled by His own example, by causing His own sacrificial works to earn the love and respect of His children, as well as the reverence of all His other creations. By continuously serving us all through His wise and just love in His heart, He has illustrated how we too must serve Him by serving His people and His creations. We are to willingly serve Him through our own spirits’
love for Him. And this love, with its willing service, is built on a rock foundation of the truths He created and reveals through His earthly creations. For our God openly and honestly reveals His most inward thoughts to us, His truths which align with all His spiritual and physical creations. He is always pouring His comprehension of His realities straight from His holy heart into our spirits.
Jesus, our God, holds nothing back from us, but educates us with all we are able to comprehend.
Then, as understand more, He teaches us more, until we begin to see the very mind of our God.
Therefore, in our own small ways, we begin to do for Him what He does for us. Because Jesus, our only God and the only Head of all our siblings in our Father’s family, wills that no awakened, loving elect soul shall ever become a despot. Therefore, none will—although some may be so deceived by the world order that they will attempt to become “great” human gods, until God erases that delusion.
When God puts the resolve in an elect spirit to become a teaching elder, all that man’s teachings and all his judgments must be for the sakes of the people whom he serves like a household slave. And he will know that he certainly is not omniscient, but is, in fact, often very stupid. Therefore, the very last thing he will ever want is unchecked power, lest he might mistakenly say or do some ignorant and unjust thing which harms or even utterly destroys an innocent life. A true teaching elder will fear to cause any kind of injustice. And true elders will never play a chess game which sacrifices pawns in order to win more wealth and more power, like the puppet kings in Satan’s kingdom do. True elders never think in terms of “collateral losses” being necessary “for the good of all,” as though their brothers and sisters are expendable parts of a system that serves only their elite human gods.
A true teaching elder, or any other kind of manager within God’s kingdom, never demands loyalty to himself and never desires the power to have his own will done by all. For God’s kingdom cannot be ruled by anyone who threatens those who offend his petty pride, since His people and His other living creations cannot remain free under those who maintain power by terrorizing their so-called Page 1304
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“inferiors.” Actually, all whom God raises up to perform teaching and judging tasks for His people do not ever actually rule at all, that is, not in the way humanists think an authority should rule. For all whom God calls to administer His ways serve all, and share the responsibility of authority with all, by requesting input from many others who God has qualified to provide information or wisdom, so they will not make mistakes and unjust judgments that might harm their people. For they know the truth, that all rulers, good and bad, stand on a platform upheld by the hands of their people. So, if the people cast that platform into a fiery pit, those rulers shall go down with it. Every good or evil ruler in every land is ultimately allowed by God due to the good or evil He finds in the hearts of those people. But, if God finds only a small minority with truly loving and just hearts, He will raise up good rulers for them. And all whom God calls to positions of authority will merely manage the spiritual and physical needs of all, according to God’s will. Thus, they threaten no one, except the outright psychopaths. Nor do they manipulate the people in others ways either, just so their own wills might be done. So His appointed elders also reject all the “management techniques” developed by “leaders” belonging to Satan’s world order, since those are all dishonest forms of manipulation to help wanna-be human gods obtain the goals of their own vain wills and egos, but in a “friendlier”
way than by direct threats. All true elders simply serve the people honestly, in the way Jesus did.
So the first priority of a true teaching elder, of a man whom Jesus has actually taught, trained and called to perform that task, is to know His heavenly Father’s will. For that man’s goal is to see God’s will done on earth as it is in heaven. And he knows that—since God’s just, wise, loving will is done in heaven through His power—God’s will can only be done on earth through God’s power. So that true teaching elder seeks God’s genuine will, and asks Him to do it among His people. After this, the teaching elder serves what He knows to be God’s will, as one of many who also know God’s will. So that true elder is always willing to hear ideas and criticisms from his brothers and sisters, even from the youngest and most immature, since they too may have heard God’s counsel. For he knows that God teaches all kinds of things to all His elect children, either through life experiences or through direct revelations to their spirits. And, since he knows his life experiences and direct revelations are extremely limited, he knows he will often be very wrong about all kinds of things. Yet someone else in God’s family, even a little child, may see his error and is able to correct him. And he also realizes that God often uses the most humble to correct the most arrogant. So he dares not silence even his most disrespected or objectionable brothers or sisters, but always attempts to reason with them, to see why they believe what they do, whenever he can—asking questions, voicing the truths he knows, and striving to come to a conclusion about all they might say, just as Jesus did with all, even with the falsely religious Jews who were trying to kill Him. For, even if his opponent refuses to see reason, a true elder must discover the sources of all they say, what came from God and what came from Satan.
Another thing about true teaching elders is that they are all seen as “cowards” in the eyes of Satan’s world order, because they are truly brave, because their true courage threatens the illicit authority of the devil’s foolish, destructive human gods. Now, in the devil’s kingdom, a man is considered to be
“brave” if he is willing to cowardly murder innocent lives to maintain the kind of “order” that he uses to discriminate against his own siblings. Or Satan may call one “brave” if he is so deluded and stupid that he willingly dies to keep his human gods in power, so they might be able to oppress and exploit the innocent. But neither that psychopath nor that duped moron is truly brave. Actually, true and godly courage refuses to look down on other siblings, but is strong enough to admit to oneself that all are sinners like himself and, therefore, all are equally placed under God grace, including oneself. But that kind of brave honesty is something that all the children of the great Liar and Murderer lack the courage to confess, since they all love their delusions of superiority so much.
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Also, the truly brave will never sacrifice another soul for the sake of anyone’s power and wealth.
Rather, the elect stand firm against all who murder for profit and power, and war against all forms of injustice. At times, like Jesus, the brave wisely remain silent or refrain from attacking. But they will also find ways to broadcast the truth effectively, so it cuts out the very cores of the lies. And they do this even as liars attempt to shout them down, or try to threaten and beat their lies into their souls.
This is the core of every biblical, just democracy, where all are equal and free, where the elders of the land take responsibility, where authorities slavishly serve God and His people through wise and brave works of love. This is why God’s Law requires every land to choose only the governing elders whom He has chosen for them, only those men whom He taught, trained and called to sacrificially serve His people like their slaves, through a compelling, just, wise love for God and those people.
Lastly, take one more look at how our God Jesus said, “Just in this way, the Son of mankind came not to be served by household slaves, but rather to serve as a household slave, and to give His soul as a ransom for many.” Here Jesus was saying that He, the King of all spiritual and physical existence,
“came” for a purpose. And He declared that His purpose was to serve as an example for all teaching, judging elders in all time. Our King and God came as a peasant, who did not even have citizenship in the ruling Roman Empire. But many other Jews were Roman citizens, even many who had no wealth nor power, who did not carry a sword or command an army, who did not threaten even the most wicked with any kind of physical violence. Then the elite Jews were also Roman citizens, and did command armies that terrorized the people. Yet Jesus came as a non-citizen, without any rights in any kingdoms of Satan’s world order. And Jesus, the King of Kings, did this to show all of us on this earth how a true governing official must teach and judge in His kingdom, in His kingdom that includes all the earth, all outer space, as well as all that exists in the eternal spiritual heavens above.
So every kind of elder, every governing individual in every kind of people-group, must make it their first priority to know and disseminate the truth, like Jesus did. For all decisions and judgments must be grounded upon the whole truth and nothing but the truth, where all are also granted a free and easily accessed right to hear that truth, everything upon which every elder bases all decisions and judgments. Then, just as Jesus went throughout His land healing the bodies and minds of His people, answering their anxious questions, feeding and strengthening them, doing all for their good, serving as though He was their household slave, so must every elder of every kind. Then Jesus will grant every real elder courage like His own, a firm resolve to lay down one’s own bodily life, to sacrifice all the days left upon the earth, to build up God’s kingdom, so our just and loving Father’s will shall be done on earth as it is in heaven. For this is what Jesus did, to the very day His body died for us.
The Victory of Jesus
Mat. 20:29-34,
Israel Recognizes Their King
“As they went out from Jericho, a great multitude followed Him. Behold, two blind men sitting by the road, when they heard that Jesus was passing by, cried out, ‘Lord, have mercy on us, You Son of David!’ The multitude rebuked them, telling them that they should be quiet, but they cried out even more, ‘Lord, have mercy on us, You Son of David!’ Jesus stood still, and called them, and asked, ‘What do you want Me to do for you?’ They told Him,
‘Lord, that our eyes may be opened.’ Jesus, being moved with compassion, touched their Page 1306
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eyes; and immediately their eyes received their sight, and they followed Him” (Mat. 20:29-34, WEB).
This occurred after Jesus had made His final trip to Jerusalem, where He had resolved to die and rise again. Jesus and His disciples had walked from the regions of Galilee, along the Jordan valley, up through Jericho, then climbed the path to the area surrounding Jerusalem. And, since they had first arrived in the region, they had seen many things. While in Jericho, they witnessed the deep, heartfelt repentance of a tax collector named Zacchaeus, who restored all he had stolen from others, then gave half his goods to the needy. And, during a meal with him, they heard a critical parable, in which Jesus revealed how He would leave His church of Israel for a very long time, but would provide His people with great treasures of truth through His Holy Spirit, while He was gone. Then He would return to judge the earth (see Luke 19:1-27). Later, they also visited Bethany, a satellite community of Jerusalem, only a few kilometres away. While there, Jesus raised Lazarus, His beloved friend and disciple, from the dead. And this miracle had convinced many souls to follow as His disciples, but also made His opponents more fervently seek to murder Him (see John 11:1-54). Now, after a brief stay in Ephraim (13 mi. from Jerusalem), Jesus and His disciples were returning to Jericho. For Jesus was refusing to enter Jerusalem yet, where His enemies lay in wait for Him. For His appointed time had not yet arrived. Jesus was waiting for the spring Passover feast, for the day He set aside for His greatest works. From the beginning, He and His Father predestined only that day for our salvation.
After another short say in Jericho, Jesus and His twelve core disciples began to ascend the winding road up through the hills to Jerusalem, together with a large crowd of His other disciples. Then all three synoptic Gospels tell us about this event, where the blind received sight as Jesus walked upon that road (Matthew’s account is above, cf., Mark 10:46-52 and Luke 18:35-43). Jesus had healed many blind people. Yet all three synoptic Gospels thought this particular healing of the blind was more notable than the healings of other blind people. So we should ask why all three thought this.
First of all, notice how Matthew states that two blind men were actually healed that day, but Mark and Luke only mention one of those two men. Then Mark even tells us the blind man’s name, his father’s name and his occupation, “the son of Timaeus, Bartimaeus, a blind beggar” (Mark 10:46, WEB). Now Mark became an apostle much later, a decade or two after Jesus ascended into glory.
Yet he knew all this about one of the blind men sitting on that road that day. Of course, Mark might have heard this blind man’s name from one of Christ’s core twelve disciples, since he must have carefully interviewed some of them while he was writing his Gospel. But why would Mark actually record that man’s name and other details about him, if that man had since faded away into obscurity?
Surely Mark had some personal knowledge of Bartimaeus. So we might conclude that the reason for all three synoptic Gospels recording this event was because at least one of those blind men became a beloved and well-recognized member of the apostolic first-century church. Yet that could not be the only reason that all three decided to write about this healing of the blind men, just before Jesus’
triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Since neither Matthew nor Luke gave any personal recognition to either blind men, and recorded no names, they must have had some other reason for writing about this event. And, in context, that reason must have something to do with Jesus going to Jerusalem.
The main thing emphasized by all three Gospels were the words which one of those blind men called out while sitting beside the road, as soon as he was told that Jesus was passing by him. All three Gospels told us how the blind man repeated one particular phrase. Matthew wrote that both of the two blind beggars called out, “Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David” (Mat. 20:30, from: Κύριε, ἐλέησον ἡμᾶς, υἱὸς Δαυίδ, SBLGNT). But, of course, both did not likely say those words in unison.
Only one of the two would have actually shouted out those words, or something very similar. Then Page 1307
most of the people in that crowd would have assumed that those blind beggars merely wanted a few coins. So one of the twelve, along with other disciples in the crowd, probably would have given them some money, since this was a tradition of devout Jews, to give coins to beggars. But Jesus Himself did not seem to carry any money with Him. For it appears that some of the more devout rabbis, like Jesus, let their disciples handle all the money (John 12:26). For Jews felt that money was too worldly to be handled by a rabbi, who was always quoting words from God and always praying to God. So Jesus likely assumed that the money carrier for His group would give coins to both the beggars, then kept on walking after the blind men called out. And, after giving the coins, everyone expected the beggars to grow quiet. But the beggars kept calling out to Jesus. And Jesus knew why.
However, the disciples rebuked them, probably thinking they were now getting a little greedy. Yet the beggars still continued to loudly cry out, “Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David” (Mat. 20:31).
Mark and Luke recorded the event in a similar wat, but both said one blind man spoke. Mark said Bartimaeus shouted, “Son of David, Jesus, have mercy on me” (Mark 10:47, from: Υἱὲ Δαυὶδ Ἰησοῦ, ἐλέησόν με, SBLGNT). Then Mark also wrote that, after being told to remain silent, that man was calling out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me” (Mark 10:48, from: Υἱὲ Δαυίδ, ἐλέησόν
με, SBLGNT). Similarly, Luke wrote that a blind beggar cried out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me” (Luke 18:38, from: Ἰησοῦ υἱὲ Δαυίδ, ἐλέησόν με, SBLGNT). And, after the people tried to quiet him, he kept crying out, “Son of David, have mercy on me” (Luke 18:39, Υἱὲ Δαυίδ, ἐλέησόν
με, SBLGNT). Now, if even one of the Gospels recorded this event, in the context of this event occurring just prior to Jesus’ triumphal entrance, we should see the point made. Yet all three Gospels pointed out that, by this time in Jesus’ ministry, even the blind Jewish beggars, living in Hellenized towns populated by many Gentiles, had begun to believe that Jesus truly was the “Son of David.” In other words, very many true Jews, many elect in God’s one and only church of Israel, had now come to realize that Jesus was their promised and long-awaited Messiah, God incarnate, who would now establish His New Covenant of salvation with the serving priesthood He created through Abraham.
Of course, Jesus had a very intelligent mind of flesh and the mind of His Spirit’s was omniscient, since His Spirit is God. Yet, in every body, the mind of flesh is limited to only so much input. And the minds of spirits often will not interfere with the thoughts in the minds of flesh, especially while the minds of flesh are managing the body, by performing mundane chores like walking on a road.
Thus, it seems that, at the start of this incident, Jesus’ mind of flesh did not acknowledge that the blind men wanted Him to give them something more than money. But, since the men kept on crying out to Him after receiving coins, the mind of Jesus’ Spirit might have then commanded his mind of flesh to pay attention to the man. “Then, having stood [still], Jesus uttered words to them and said,
‘What are you resolved I should do for you?” (Mat. 20:32, from: καὶ στὰς ὁ Ἰησοῦς ἐφώνησεν
αὐτοὺς καὶ εἶπεν· Τί θέλετε ποιήσω ὑμῖν;, SBLGNT). Naturally, since Jesus was well-known for healing blind people, Jesus would have assumed the blind men wanted to be healed. Yet He still asked them this question, since all His healings were personal gifts for His people’s elect spirits.
Consider how Jesus could have healed the blind from a distance, even a stranger who was in a location unknown to His mind of flesh. For His Spirit is God, and knows where every spirit is at all times. For instance, we saw how a centurion came to Jesus, asking Him to heal his servant. So Jesus did that, in the centurion’s home, from a distance, without going to that servant’s home and without touching that servant. And it is certain that Jesus never had been in the Roman centurion’s home, and probably did not even know where it was, nor where the servant was lying within that house (see Mat. 9:5-13). Therefore, we know Jesus could have healed those blind men without stopping, without turning around, and without speaking a single word to those blind men. Jesus could have Page 1308
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simply healed both of them while He kept on walking, which would impress the crowd with His great power. And, if Jesus wanted to make a show of His power, as some falsely accuse Him of doing, He would have simply snapped His fingers and kept on walking. And that carnal kind of showmanship would have been His usual mode of healing. But Jesus had not ever healed anyone solely to demonstrate His power. He never tried to “prove” that He is God, in order to make the unbelievers believe that He is the Messiah. Only charlatans do that kind of thing, even on stages with crowds gathered around them. Jesus did not heal souls for any kind of glory or to make them believe in Him. Rather, Jesus always healed bodies through His love for the individual elect spirits inside.
Thus, Jesus stopped to talk personally with the blind men. Knowing exactly what they wanted, Jesus also asked them what they willed for Him to do, so His conversation would include their input, so their hearts might look up from the darkness of their despair, so their spirits might see His Spirit seeing them and realize His love for them. Now Jesus knew He was days away from being hailed as Israel’s Messiah and King in Jerusalem. And He also knew how that would result in the Jewish and Gentile institutions of Satan’s world order brutally murdering Him. But then He could rise from the dead victorious, to grant eternal salvation to all the elect souls who ever existed in all past and future times, although He would need to physically leave until His kingdom had grown throughout the world. And all this would be the greatest work that mankind would ever see on earth. Yet the healing of those two blind beggars was part of that magnificent work. For God’s personal love for each individual elect soul is the impenetrable shield that makes Him and His kingdom invincible. The essence of God is love. The essence of His kingdom is love. And all of our saving faith is ultimately based on our trust that Jesus will actually love each of us. So this is why, no matter how much Jesus had to use His body and mind of flesh to focus on His massive task of saving all the elect souls of the past, present and future, He nevertheless stopped to personally talk to those men and heal them.
Mark provided a more complete, personal and emotional account of how one of the blind beggars, Bartimaeus, met Jesus and was healed of his blindness. It seems as though Mark knew that man in some capacity, and possibly heard about this event from that man’s own mouth. Matthew merely told us that those blind men asked to be healed of their blindness. But Mark reveals details which also illustrate the joy and exuberance of that blind man’s faith in Jesus: “Then, after standing [still], Jesus said, ‘Call him.’ So they were calling the blind man saying to him, ‘Be comforted. Rise up, He is calling you.’ So after casting his outer garment from [himself], having risen, he went to Jesus. And, after responding to him, Jesus said, ‘What are you resolved I should do for you?’ So the blind man said to Him, ‘Rabboni, that I might see again’” (Mark 10:49-51, from: καὶ στὰς ὁ Ἰησοῦς εἶπεν·
Φωνήσατε αὐτόν. καὶ φωνοῦσι τὸν τυφλὸν λέγοντες αὐτῷ· Θάρσει, ἔγειρε, φωνεῖ σε. ὁ δὲ ἀποβαλὼν
τὸ ἱμάτιον αὐτοῦ ἀναπηδήσας ἦλθεν πρὸς τὸν Ἰησοῦν. καὶ ἀποκριθεὶς αὐτῷ ὁ Ἰησοῦς εἶπεν· Τί σοι
θέλεις ποιήσω; ὁ δὲ τυφλὸς εἶπεν αὐτῷ· Ραββουνι, ἵνα ἀναβλέψω, SBLGNT). So Jesus did not simply stop to talk to the sitting beggar at the side of the road. Rather, Jesus called him to rise up and come to Him, to stand before Him, as His friend. Then Christ’s disciples went and led the blind man up to Jesus, speaking words of comfort to him, knowing their Teacher would soon heal him. So it seems as though some of Jesus disciples demonstrated faith in Him, if we look at what they said to the blind man. Then, since the blind man wanted Jesus to heal him, and rushed to see Jesus, he also demonstrated that he too believed Jesus was the Messiah, God incarnate, well-able to heal blindness.
Just look at the urgency in which Bartimaeus responded to Christ’s call, by casting aside his outer garment, lest it might slow him down as he quickly rose up and ran to see Jesus. It appears that he did not want his cloak to steal even a fraction of a second from the time he could spend with Jesus.
Also, note how Bartimaeus did not simply call Jesus his “Rabbi,” but used a more respectful and Page 1309
reverent term, “Rabboni.” This indicated that he revered Jesus as the best and most trustworthy of all those who taught about God, biblical faith and life. Lastly, look at how Bartimaeus asked Jesus for this favour, that “I might see again” (ἀναβλέψω). Thus suggests he had once been able to see. He was not born blind. Bartimaeus once knew what it was like to see the eyes of loved ones, or watch God send daylight, night, rain and wind to change the faces of His people and His living creations.
After Bartimaeus asked Jesus to heal his blindness, both Mark and Luke tell us what Jesus told him, and how he then responded to Jesus. Mark wrote: “So Jesus said to him, ‘ Your faith saved you with this effect.’ And he immediately recovered sight, then followed [as a disciple] for Him in the way”
(Mark 10:52, ALT). Luke wrote something similar: “So Jesus said to him, ‘Fully receive sight. Your faith saved you with this effect.’ And he instantly recovered sight, then followed [as a disciple] for Him, glorifying God. And all the people who saw [it] gave praise to God” (Luke 18:42-43, ALT).
Both Mark and Luke told us that Jesus used a perfect tense of the verb σώζω, to emphasize how the faith of Bartimaeus resulted in the effect of his healing. Of course, it was the power of God, the will and power of Jesus’ Spirit, which healed the blind man’s eyes, since faith has absolutely no power to do anything, whether or not one wills to have it done. So, by saying this, Jesus was simply indicating why He chose to heal Bartimaeus. It was because the spirit of Bartimaeus trusted in Jesus’ love , in His words as a Teacher of genuine truth, and in His power to do even the impossible. Then, since the loving elect spirit of Bartimaeus desperately longed to be taught and trained by Jesus, so he could learn to build up just and wise love in his spirit, then express that love through his body, he followed Jesus as His disciple. And, since Mark likely wrote this Gospel about 30 years after that event, but seems to have personally heard the testimony of Bartimaeus about the time he wrote it, we might be able to assume that Bartimaeus had remained a true, faithful disciple of Jesus for the rest of his life.
So now we can understand a little more about the motivation and faith of at least one of those two blind men. We are not told anything about the other healed blind man. But perhaps both lived out their time on earth as blessed disciples of Jesus, like Bartimaeus apparently did. And we may assume that Matthew, Mark and Luke all provided an account of this event in order to demonstrate how even the blind Jewish beggars, who were usually the last to find out what was happening in Israel, began to believe that Jesus was Israel’s long-awaited Messiah and King. All three wanted us to realize that, by this time, literally everyone in Israel had heard about Jesus and had made a decision as to whether or not their spirits would trust in Him. All three of the synoptic Gospels wanted us to know that, if even blind beggars in the primarily Gentile region of Jericho knew about Jesus and placed their faith in Him, then Jesus had surely reached the pinnacle of His popularity. And this is why huge numbers of people gathered around Jesus, calling Him their saving King, when He later entered the gates of Jerusalem. Yet, when Mark and Luke wrote about this event, their focus seemed to rest primarily on one healed blind man. For both wanted us to know the effects of Jesus’ personal love for him. Then Matthew’s Gospel told us almost nothing about the blind men, but focused on what Jesus did and how Jesus felt when He healed the men. Still, all three were also illustrating how, by this time in Jesus’ ministry, everyone in Israel knew Jesus’ teachings and had chosen to be for or against Him.
All Matthew wrote, after telling us the blind men asked Jesus to heal them, was this: “Having been moved with compassion, Jesus touched their eyes and they immediately recovered sight. Then they followed [as disciples] for Him” (Mat. 20: 34, ALT). Now Matthew was with those healed blind men for some time, since they all walked about 17 miles (27 km) up the road to Jerusalem together. Then Matthew likely also saw them again, after that day, as well. Yet he did not say much about them, and chose to focus entirely on what Jesus felt and did. Matthew wanted us to realize that Jesus, even on His way to do the most important work in the history of the world, compassionately healed those two Page 1310
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blind beggars. These were two men whom Satan’s world order considered to be worthless damaged goods, totally useless and expendable. Nevertheless, to our High King and God, they were no less valuable than anyone else. Matthew, a first-hand witness of both this event and the critical few days following it—when Jesus made His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, then conquered Satan’s world order for all time through His death and resurrection—wanted us to now focus on Jesus alone. For saving faith is faith in Jesus alone, and there is no other name that can begin to truly save any of us.
Mat. 21:1-11,
His Triumphal Entry
“When they drew near to Jerusalem, and came to Bethsphage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, ‘Go into the village that is opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Untie them, and bring them to Me. If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, “The Lord needs them,” and immediately he will send them.’
“All this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through the prophet, saying,
‘Tell the daughter of Zion, behold, your King comes to you, humble, and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’ The disciples went, and did just as Jesus commanded them, and brought the donkey and the colt, and laid their clothes on them; and He sat on them.
“A very great multitude spread their clothes on the road. Others cut branches from the trees, and spread them on the road. The multitudes who went before Him, and who followed kept shouting, ‘Hosanna to the son of David! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the highest!’ When He had come into Jerusalem, all the city was stirred up, saying, ‘Who is this?’ The multitudes said, ‘This is the prophet, Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee’” (Mat. 21:1-11, WEB).
Jesus planned to enter Jerusalem at a gate facing the Mount of Olives, exactly the same gate He will use to enter Jerusalem in the future, when He returns to the earth a second time, also as the Messiah, the King of Israel and the entire world. But, when He enters that gate the second time, He will come to the Mount of Olives riding on a white horse, not a donkey. For, if a king came riding a donkey to a conquered city, it was a sign that he was coming to reason with the people, hoping to convince them to serve Him as His citizens. It was a sign that the king came in peace, and would not slaughter his opponents. However, if a king came to a conquered city on a horse, it usually indicated that He was now going to destroy every semblance of resistance against His rule, every soldier or rebel who willingly fought against Him, even all the people who spoke his name with contempt. Then, if the king’s horse was white, and he was wearing royal robes, it showed that the king had complete confidence in his power to destroy all who hated Him, and His enemies had no power to harm Him.
Here Jesus, the High King of all the world, and the High Priest of the true church of Israel, signalled that He came in peace, this one last time, during His first earthly ministry, to reason with the remnant of His royal priesthood of Israel in Jerusalem. He realized that His power-hungry, covetous enemy would murder His body of flesh through unrestrained wrath, inflicting as much pain as they possibly could upon Him. But He came in peace anyway, for the sakes of the spirits who were able to love in a just, God-like way. For their benefit, His dead and buried body would also rise to His throne in heaven, then rule His earthly kingdom through His true church, by sending His Spirit to elect souls for many centuries to come, to teach and counsel those awakened spirits, to build up their knowledge Page 1311
and acceptance of truth. Finally, once His kingdom on earth was firmly established, and all souls on earth choose either His kingdom or Satan’s world order, He would return, but on His white horse.
Only after the completed dichotomization of the elect and non-elect in the future, will God’s warfare against the devil’s kingdom end in victory, and without any “collateral damage.” By then, all the elect will be marked with the seal of God upon their spirits in their hearts. Then the non-elect will respond by placing a physical mark on their hands or foreheads, a mark upon their flesh, to indicate their carnal worship of Satan’s chosen ruler of their kingdom, the beast, to show that their flesh is the only god of their spirits, and to declare loyalty to Mammon. All human spirits will be exposed as either heirs of the heavenly Father or heirs of the devil. Only after every individual is compelled to take one side or the other, will our King return on His white horse. Only then will He destroy all the loveless, lying, murdering wretches on earth, since they will no longer have any elect dupes to use as shields against God’s wrath. Only after the elect and non-elect separate, will Jesus judge the earth.
Just a few weeks before Jesus came to this city of God’s eternal presence on earth, He had raised Lazarus from the dead in Bethany, in a place located a few kilometres (2 miles) from Jerusalem (see John 11:1-54). Then, six days before the Passover feast began, He returned to Bethany, and to the house of Lazarus (John 12:1). That resurrection had made Jesus even more popular among the common people, since Lazarus walked among them daily, although many witnesses saw him die and knew he had lain in a tomb for four days, tightly wrapped in grave cloths. Yet his resurrection also made Jesus an even bigger threat to the control which the religious psychopaths exerted. For Jesus was exposing the way in which they used fake religion to dupe and suppress the people under their thumbs. Jesus’ loving miracles were winning the hearts of the people, turning many spirits back to the truth. So the “leaders” of the exploiting false church were very busy trying to find ways to hold onto their deluding power over the people, by seeking new ways to slander Jesus; because, as sons of Satan, their only means of maintaining their power were lies and murder. Of course, Jesus knew they were coming to kill Him, and often warned His disciples that those God-haters would soon do so.
But, as His final Passover feast and His appointed time of death approached, the people had to know His intentions for them, that He came to become their spirits’ eternal King through the peace and sin offering of His own body. Thus, He came in peace to save literally all whose spirits were capable of just love, to gather as many as the Father allowed into the citizenship of His earthly kingdom. All had to know that His current arrival in Jerusalem was not to shed blood, but to call with His Spirit.
So Jesus had left Bethany and had now begun walking toward the village of Bethphage, which was just a few hundred yards ahead of Him. And Bethphage stood at the foot of the Mount of Olives, less than a couple hundred yards from the east gate or Golden Gate into Jerusalem, a gate that provided direct access to the temple. This was also the gate through which the chosen scapegoat was set free into the wilderness, after the high priest offered Yahweh’s goat as a sin offering to save the scapegoat (Lev. 16:7-10). Then, just before reaching Bethphage, Jesus sent two of His disciples there, to fetch a donkey and her foal. Of course, a foal usually refers to a male or female donkey under a year old, one that is not yet been ridden. But donkeys can live up to 40 years or more, and their foals are faithful, forming lifelong bonds with their mothers. So this foal could have been a fully mature donkey, possibly more than two years old and previously ridden. Also, even if it was an unbroken foal, a very tame family pet could usually be ridden without too much trouble, especially if it was being led by people and its mother was nearby. A family may have purchased the female, bred her, then kept the male foal so they could have two donkeys, to use as pack animals or to carry family members. And, since these were probably the Nubian breed of donkeys, about four feet tall at the shoulders, a mature colt could easily carry an adult man. Thus, it was possible for Jesus to ride the Page 1312
Mat. 21:1-11, His Triumphal Entry
foal. And we are told that Jesus did ride the foal, with the mother led behind, so the foal could see her and remain calm. There is nothing to suggest that it would have been impossible to ride a foal.
Now the word used here for the foal (πῶλον) is masculine. So the foal was a “Jack” or a “John,” a breeding male or a neutered male (but most males are neutered before six months to prevent uncontrollable behaviours). It was a colt, not a filly. And, although Matthew does not reveal which donkey Jesus road, both Luke and John told us that Jesus rode on the colt. Considering that Luke was an able historian, while John was actually one of the twelve, and an eye-witness of this event, we can be certain that Jesus did indeed ride on the male foal. John told us, “So, after finding a young donkey, Jesus sat upon it” (John 12:14, from: εὑρὼν δὲ ὁ Ἰησοῦς ὀνάριον ἐκάθισεν ἐπʼ αὐτό, SBLGNT). Luke wrote that Jesus told two of His disciples: “You will find a colt having been tied and remaining there, upon which absolutely no people ever sat. And, having loosed him, lead [him]
away” (Luke 19:30, from: εὑρήσετε πῶλον δεδεμένον, ἐφʼ ὃν οὐδεὶς πώποτε ἀνθρώπων ἐκάθισεν, καὶ λύσαντες αὐτὸν ἀγάγετε, SBLGNT). Thus, we can be sure that the colt was not trained to be ridden. Then Luke added: “And after having cast their garments upon the colt, they mounted Jesus
[on the colt]” (Luke 19:35, from: καὶ ἐπιρίψαντες αὐτῶν τὰ ἱμάτια ἐπὶ τὸν πῶλον ἐπεβίβασαν τὸν
Ἰησοῦν, SBLGNT), but did not even mention the mother of the colt. Yet, since this colt was old enough to be ridden, but had not been ridden, it was likely about two years old, but very tame.
Luke and John said Jesus rode the foal, even on a colt that had never been ridden. But it was not a good idea to ride an unbroken colt into a shouting crowd of people. It usually takes months to condition a donkey or horse to remain calm in a shouting crowd pressing in on it, even one from a calmer breed that has been lovingly cared for like a pet. And most would expect an unbroken colt to spook and panic in a crowd of shouting people. In fact, even in a quiet situation, the first time one is ridden, it normally ties to bolt, to flee from the strange feeling of something or someone placed on its back. And some might even buck, to throw off whoever is on it. Then, even a professional rodeo rider would find it impossible stay on a bucking donkey or short horse, since their short legs heave its body up and around far too quickly to react. It is far easier to stay on a large bucking horse than on a bucking donkey. The point is that it takes a lot of time, patience and work to train a donkey to let a person ride on its back, especially in a noisy crowd. And that training is normally must be done by a person who is very familiar with the donkey, by someone whom the donkey trusts and loves.
Yet Jesus got on that young and unbroken donkey, then rode it straight into an extremely loud, rambunctious crowd of thousands, who had gathered in Jerusalem to have a big party, to celebrate the Passover. So, although the mother of that colt was likely led behind him to calm it, and that foal had likely followed its mother into the crowded city of Jerusalem many times, Jesus seems to have exerted a miraculously calming effect upon that blessed animal. Of course, we are not given nearly enough information to call this a miracle. But it is interesting how Jesus seemed to be able to affect the behaviour of that colt, as though His Spirit, was God ruling over even the souls of the animals.
Then the way Jesus told His two disciples to obtain the donkeys reveals His power: “Journey on into the village before you, and you will immediately find a donkey having been tied up and waiting, even a foal with her. After untying [the female], lead [them] to Me. Also, if anyone might have said anything to you, you reason that the Lord has a needful use for them. So he will immediately send them out [on this mission]” (Mat. 21:2-3, ALT). Perhaps Jesus had good eyesight and could see the donkeys standing in the village. Still, His commands seem to indicate a foreknowledge of events and of the wills of the donkeys’ owners. First, it says the female donkey was tied up, but implies that the foal was not. For Matthew did not use a plural pronoun (“them”) to indicate that both donkeys were tied. Thus, Matthew seemed to imply that only the mother donkey had been tied, and that her foal Page 1313
was voluntarily remaining close to its mother. But, if the foal remained with its mother, did this imply that it was not yet weaned, and far too young to be ridden. This may seem to be logical assumption, but it was a wrong assumption, as we see in the accounts by Luke and John. The fact is that a foal of a donkey is a loyal follower of its mother, and will seldom leave her side at any age.
Second, notice how Jesus did not tell the two disciples to buy the donkeys, nor pay anything for the
“rental” of those donkeys. This suggests that Jesus and His disciples did not have much money. For, if Jesus was very wealthy, as some liars like to say, He would have told them to pay something to the donkeys’ owner. In fact, if Jesus was very rich, He would not have been walking at all that day, but would have been riding a horse or travelling in a wagon. But, if a very wealthy man did need the donkeys, he would not have rented or borrowed them, but bought it outright, since they would merely cost him a little pocket change. To wealthy men in that society, where there was a grossly extreme disparity between the rich and poor, a few months wages for a labourer was less than what they would spend on a single article of clothing. Yet here Jesus and His disciples had to rely on the charity of the donkeys’ owner, and were forced to borrow the donkeys without paying rent. Yet this also means Jesus was a conscientious, trusted, good-hearted Rabbi, who received many donations of money and other goods, but was expected to use most of this for charitable works of God, while He Himself lived a modest life, taking only what He needed to do His works and live. Jesus and His group of core disciples had no excess money to spend on a donkey while their people went hungry.