3:00 pm), Pilate could hardly believe Jesus had already died. For even the weakest men tortured to death on a cross often survived a day or two. However, the centurion confirmed that Jesus had died by that time. So Pilate was satisfied with this report, since it is easy to tell when a crucified person stops lifting up to breathe and is dead. So he let Joseph take Jesus’ body down from the cross (Mark 15:44-45), and freed His body, and therefore the body of His true church, from Rome’s possession.
Pilate and the Roman soldiers were very cooperative after the two hours of darkness and a local earthquake had instilled the fear of God in them. So, within about a half an hour, Jesus’ body would have been taken down from the cross. And, as Joseph was making the arrangements, another devout and prosperous member of the Sanhedrin, Nicodemus, went out to acquire the perfumes and spices, such as myrrh and aloe, which the women would need to prepare the body for burial. And, actually, Nicodemus brought an excessive amount, almost 33 kilograms (about 72 pounds), far more than the women would require (John 19:39-40). Most likely, since both Joseph and Nicodemus seemed to have been members of the Sanhedrin who loved Jesus, the disciples would have called both to rush to the temple court of the Sanhedrin as soon as they saw a quorum of rogue council members taking Jesus there. Then, after these two failed to persuade the conspiring quorum of members to change their minds, they followed those plotters to Pilate’s palace, then to the crucifixion site. And both were probably talking to one another about the burial of Jesus while He was dying. So it seems that they coordinated their efforts. Joseph went to get permission to take the body while Nicodemus went to get all the expensive cloth, perfumes and spices necessary to properly wrap and prepare the dead.
After the disciples had prepared Jesus’ body, they wrapped it in a clean, new, solid linen cloth. This would be used as a makeshift stretcher, enabling about four or six male disciples to grab the corners and edges of the strong linen cloth, lift the body, and carry it away. And they did this as fast as they could, since it would have been after about 4:00 pm on the Preparation Day, that is, Friday, before they finished washing and wrapping the body. That is, one of the most holy Saturday Sabbaths of the year, the special Sabbath of the Passover week, was about to begin at sundown (i.e., at about 6:00
pm). So they had only about an hour or two to wash the body, lay fragrances on it and wrap it, then carry it to the burial site, lay it down, pray and rush back to their homes before the Passover Sabbath began. However, the tomb was very close, a new one Joseph had carved into the rock (Luke 23:53; John 19:41), for his own future burial. Considering their time frame, it must have been very close, and was likely located where the Church of the Holy Sepulchre now stands, in a spot which had been situated just outside the city in the first century, by northeast walls of old Jerusalem. So the many hands of the disciples working together against the clock, finished this task not long before sunset.
The women followed the men as they carried Jesus’ body to the tomb, so they could see which one Jesus would be placed in, since there were many tombs in the area at that time. For, like today, certain areas were designated as grave sites, since Jews considered dead bodies to be ceremonially unclean, and grouped them all in an area that was considered to be ceremonially unclean. Now, in order to speed up the process, about half a dozen male disciples would have run ahead of the men carrying the body, to open the door of the tomb, so the others carrying the body could walk directly inside without delay. For they needed strong men to roll away the very heavy, flat, round, carved stone covering the entrance, up a slight slope in a carved groove, then set a rock or wooden wedge under it, to keep it from rolling back and closing the entrance. After carrying Jesus’ body inside, they would have gently placed it on platform in the centre of the tomb, likely on a stone slab placed over a rock stand. Immediately after placing the body on the slab, and saying a short prayer, they would have exited the tomb, removed the wedge holding the stone door open, and eased the round stone back into place, to close the entrance. As soon as the body was resting inside, all the disciples would Page 1862
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have walked or even run to their homes or temporary residences, since the Jewish laws required them to be within them, or at least a Sabbath day’s journey from them, before sunset. Otherwise, if they were not in or close enough to their homes, the Jewish authorities, who hated them, might accuse them of breaking the Sabbath, which carried a maximum penalty of being stoned to death.
So the disciples of Jesus were forced to wait for about 36 hours before they could visit the tomb, to pray and prepare the body. For the powerful and ruthless Jewish authorities would never allow them to visit a ceremonially unclean grave site on the Sabbath day, especially not on a special Passover Sabbath Saturday. Nor could they visit during the dangerous darkness of the night, immediately after the next sunset, when the Sabbath ended and the first day of the week began. So they had to wait until the dawn of Sunday morning. For they were being watched by the pawns of the rogue Jewish authorities, by the council members who hated God and had just murdered Jesus; who sought to obliterate all the truths He taught, as well as all who believed those truths. Thus, none of Jesus’
disciples dared to offend the man-invented Sabbath laws of those ruling despots, but hid in their homes until it was legal, by church standards, to visit the tomb. However, like all psychopaths, those rogue Sanhedrin members saw no need to obey their own invented Sabbath rules, nor even God’s own Sabbath laws. To psychopaths, rules are only for inferiors, not for human-owning human gods like themselves. Therefore, just after the most holy Sabbath day began at sunset, after the disciples of Jesus fled to their homes, those God-haters set out to do some difficult labouring for their personal financial and political gain. To ensure that their own illicit incomes and statuses were not threatened by the honest disciples of Israel’s Messiah, they did the blasphemous work of seeking illicit help from the pagan Romans, whose pagan religion they were diligently emulating in every quintessential spiritual aspect. For they required permission to guard their cunning deceptions and stolen incomes.
“Now on the next day, that which is after the preparation day, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered together before Pilate, reasoning: ‘Lord, we had remembered that this imposter, while living, said, “After three days, I am being raised.” Therefore, please command the tomb to be made secure until the third day, lest His disciples, after coming, might steal Him. Then they might say to the people, “He was raised from the dead ones,” and the final deceit will be worse than the first.’
Pilate revealed his thoughts to them, ‘You have a guard. Go! Fully make [it] secure, just as you have thought about and know how to do.’ So, having departed, they fully secured the tomb with the guard, after sealing the stone” (Mat. 27:62-66, from: Τῇ δὲ ἐπαύριον, ἥτις ἐστὶν μετὰ τὴν παρασκευήν, συνήχθησαν οἱ ἀρχιερεῖς καὶ οἱ Φαρισαῖοι πρὸς Πιλᾶτον λέγοντες· Κύριε, ἐμνήσθημεν ὅτι ἐκεῖνος ὁ
πλάνος εἶπεν ἔτι ζῶν· Μετὰ τρεῖς ἡμέρας ἐγείρομαι· κέλευσον οὖν ἀσφαλισθῆναι τὸν τάφον ἕως τῆς
τρίτης ἡμέρας, μήποτε ἐλθόντες οἱ μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ κλέψωσιν αὐτὸν καὶ εἴπωσιν τῷ λαῷ· Ἠγέρθη
ἀπὸ τῶν νεκρῶν, καὶ ἔσται ἡ ἐσχάτη πλάνη χείρων τῆς πρώτης. ἔφη αὐτοῖς ὁ Πιλᾶτος· Ἔχετε
κουστωδίαν· ὑπάγετε ἀσφαλίσασθε ὡς οἴδατε. οἱ δὲ πορευθέντες ἠσφαλίσαντο τὸν τάφον
σφραγίσαντες τὸν λίθον μετὰ τῆς κουστωδίας, SBLGNT). It should be noted here that these chief priests and evangelical leaders (Pharisees) did this on the day “after the preparation day” which occurred during the Passover week. Therefore, they did this on a more strict and holy Sabbath day.
First we should notice how these “imposters,” who robbed the innocent of their lives, somehow assumed that they were playing a political game with other “imposters,” who “might steal” the body of Jesus to practise “deceit.” It did not occur to them that Jesus truly was the prophesied Messiah, in spite of all the truth He uttered and all the loving miracles He performed in His own name, to build up God’s just kingdom on earth. Nor could they imagine that His disciples might be genuine, honest souls. For the only kind of “empathy” a psychopaths manifests is either fake or an assumption that all others think in the same way he or she thinks. And this is why they transfer their own internal evil Page 1863
intentions and motives, along with their own guilt, upon others, even upon the most innocent, honest, humble, hard-working, equitable, just and loving awakened elect. For all psychopaths are entirely trapped within dark little delusions, which their lying father helped them create for themselves, and none are ever able to even glimpse outside of that delusional world they live within. All are totally incapable of seeing the realities God created all around them, and none can even begin to think about
“whatever things are true, ... honourable ... just ... pure ... lovely ... of good report,” nor understand
“if there is any virtue, and if there is any praise” (see Phil. 4:8). The only “empathy” psychopaths have is with other psychopaths. But they only use this ability to comprehend the thoughts of other psychopaths to devise strategies against them, in their wars against all existence outside of their own delusional worlds. But psychopaths find it impossible to war against God, or His true servants, or any physical and spiritual realities God created, because these entities do not exist in their dark little delusional comprehensions. Thus, Jesus now used this weakness of these psychopaths against them.
Even more than the other Sabbath days of the year, the Sabbath occurring during the Passover week should have been a day set aside for family gatherings in their homes, for their people to fellowship with one another, so all might eat, play games, talk and learn to love one another. Yet, all these rogue council members abandoned their homes, marched to a pagan palace, and desperately tried to defend themselves from their God and His people. For the only things their greedy, arrogant little minds were able to think about on that special Sabbath day were their own selfish ambitions. They knew they had to suppress all the biblical truths which threatened their crafty little ways of stealing money from the people, and all the truths which damaged their falsely “good” reputations. They had to ensure that everything which might nullify the good-will assets they purchased with their murders and stolen money, all they worked so hard to establish through lies and sacrifices of innocent lives, remained safe. And, since real truths must be suppressed, those who voiced truths must be silenced.
Thus, they dragged their loveless and anxious carcasses to Pilate, to labour hard in their own difficult personal works on that Sabbath day, to do odious tasks for themselves. And they specifically went to do the work of asking pagan Pilate to “command the tomb to be made secure,” by allowing the official Roman seal over the door of the tomb. For a Roman seal would bear the authority and power of the deadly human gods and soldiers in their entire empire. If anyone broke that seal and entered that tomb, they would do so upon the penalty of death. But such a seal also required a guard unit with it, consisting of at least two soldiers, to serve as an official “custodian” (κουστωδία) of the seal.
Of course, it has been observed that psychopaths seem to be able to more quickly recognize other psychopaths, and often develop an instant affinity with one another. And, in Matthew’s Gospel, we see that a comradery had blossomed between those rogue council members and Pilate, a meeting of like minds, as there is between Trump and the vicious psychopathic president of North Korea, Kim Jong-un. Like those religious deceivers, ruthless Pilate also realized there could be trouble if the Jews stole the body of Jesus. So Pilate decided to dispatch a Roman authority, perhaps a centurion, to place a Roman seal on the stone door of the tomb. However, Pilate always worried about not having enough Roman soldiers at his garrison, too few to adequately force his Roman will upon the Jews and protect him, especially during the Passover season, when Jews from all over the world came to Jerusalem. And Pilate also knew that these rogue council members had their own army of trained Levitical soldiers, the “policemen” of their religion. Thus, those religious exploiters could send their own temple “police” to guard the tomb, to maintain the integrity of the pagan Roman seal.
Of course, those false priests and fake evangelicals were both honoured and willing to serve pagan Rome against their own people of Israel, since it would help both preserve their illicitly acquired money and power. Thus, the rogue council led a Roman official to the tomb, so he could place the Page 1864
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pagan Roman seal on its door. And this means they knew exactly where the tomb was located. But how? The most probable reason for them knowing its location would be because they had sent spies to follow Jesus’ disciples on the previous afternoon, when the disciples put Jesus’ body in the tomb.
And their spies likely were still following and watching Jesus’ principal disciples, while others were also watching the tomb all night. So, after leading a Roman authority to the tomb, the false priests and fake elders would have opened the tomb and looked inside, to ensure that the body was still there and that their spies had successfully completed their assignment. After this inspection, those corrupt Jewish authorities would have paid their spies and sent them away. Once the door to the tomb was rolled back in place, the clay or was would be moulded to a space between the door and the stone wall, than the Roman seal would be stamped into that soft medium. Immediately after this, the Jewish council would have commanded at least two of their own temple “policemen” to guard the tomb. And make no mistake, the temple guards chosen by those religious frauds would have been very capable thugs, just as criminal as the Roman soldiers. And those temple “policemen” dared not fall asleep during guard duty—not only because they would be publicly disgraced and lose their jobs, but also because the robes they were wearing would be set on fire if they did, causing them painful burns which would scar them for life. So we can be certain they remained awake and alert.
Now can see why Matthew’s account seems to be so authentic. Notice the words of the religious authorities when they spoke to Pilate. Our own experiences and historical texts often demonstrate how the worst of liars make the strongest accusations against those who expose their lies and sins.
For instance, the lying fascists and their leader, Trump, repeatedly accuse their most honest and innocent exposers of their lies of being lying fascists guilty of the crimes they themselves commit.
Then the most evil deceivers usually use the foulest titles when referring to their honest, innocent and, therefore, most threatening opponents. They call those honest, innocent souls by the most defaming and wickedly slanderous names they can dream up, even when it is totally unnecessary to do so. For instance, Trump, a pathological liar and psychopath, almost always calls all honest souls, especially those who expose his lies and crimes, by the most derogatory titles and descriptors, and is seldom willing to utter their real names, unless he also enhances the names with some kind of insult.
Likewise, these fake priests, false evangelical leaders and Pilate all refused to use the name of Jesus when they spoke about Him. All these religious frauds knew His name very well, since they had jealously and anxiously watched Jesus for about three years. Yet, as those imposters spoke to Pilate, those imposters referred to Jesus as “the imposter” (πλάνος, “deceiver, imposter”), and refused to mention His name even once, although the entire conversation revolved around the topic of Jesus’
body. Then you can also see how Pilate knew exactly who they were talking about, since Pilate had also been troubled by the truths of Jesus, and had Him watched for the last three years as well. This technique of using defamatory titles to dehumanize the honest opponents of one’s lies and delusions is a very familiar trait among psychopathic deceivers. For their inner Satanic rage, against all who would dare to hinder their wills and damage their swollen egos, makes it almost impossible for them to simply mention the name of these honest souls in their conversations. Then psychopaths also feel compelled to accuse their innocent enemies of the same lies and crimes they have perpetrated. For they know that their dupes suffer extensively from their own lies and crimes. Thus, the ruthless worshipped owners of those dupes need a scapegoat, someone to blame for all the pains their human property endures from them, from those lying psychopathic gods who are always manipulating and exploiting them. Therefore, a psychopath will almost always call an honest soul a “liar”; and a psychopathic religious deceiver almost always calls a preachers of God’s genuine truth a “deceiver”; or a psychopathic imposter pretending to be a secular authority will always call a genuine secular Page 1865
authority, chosen by God, an “imposter.” This is an extremely common psychopathic trait. They are all just like Trump, although most are smarter than him, able to disguise their behaviours far better.
This conversation between those religious scammers and Pilate also reveals that other common trait shared by psychopaths. Most assume that all other human beings think exactly the same way they do. Psychopaths believe all hearts manufacture the same evil motives and malicious intentions that their hearts do. Since psychopaths have non-elect spirits, which are totally incapable of producing or even recognizing genuine God-like love, and since their spirits never possess an inner conscience, they maintain an amoral and totally self-serving world-view. So they assume that literally everyone will do anything for the right price, and that everyone is always out to get whatever one can for oneself, just as they do. And they believe everyone competes against one another, stabs one another in the back, through selfish ambitions, in order to survive. Then successful psychopaths believe that only a few cunning superior people, like themselves, can make it to the top and exploit all the others.
To psychopaths, life is a game, where the one who can deceive, manipulate, oppress and terrorize the largest number of dupes is the winner. And the prize for the winners is what they like to falsely call
“freedom.” This fake “freedom” requires the oppression of all “losers,” and is actually the opposite of biblically defined freedom. For psychopathic “freedom” involves being enslaved by an incessant and delusional spiritual drive to become a god ruling over a kingdom of some sort. Their kind of slavish “freedom” is the simply an ability to make and enforce their own laws and rules upon others, gaining the power to force “inferiors” to worship them and serve their whims, while also having no laws or rules to inhibit or limit their own criminal choices or desires in any way. Related to this prize is the reward of possessing more self-indulgent toys for themselves, far more than than any of their dehumanized “inferiors” can obtain. Thus, psychopaths need Satan’s invention of money to get those toys, as well as to oppress their “inferiors,” to prevent their dupes from getting the same toys and to keep them subservient, by controlling their slaves’ access to food, clothing and shelter. So a common trait of psychopaths is a love for money and financial systems. Psychopaths also tend to believe that wealth is “easy” to obtain, since it is easy for them to get it, through lies, cheating, thefts and crimes.
So, as you can see, psychopaths are actually the most enslaved of all human beings, chained in a dark little delusional unreality, from which they have no power to ever escape, nor any willingness to do so. Now, naturally, an unreal world view like this must suppress, oppress, prohibit and ruthlessly destroy anyone or anything that reveals any realities, since truths and realities, when understood, may cause their dupes to see how wicked, destructive and worthless those psychopaths actually are.
And as soon as their dupes realize that their own worshipped psychopaths are the causes of the chaos they are suffering and dying within, and how those psychopaths thrive because of that chaos, their dupes may not only abandon them, but may even murder them. Likewise, psychopaths also need to either eliminate or thoroughly corrupt the truths that God revealed in His Word. For God’s truths not only expose them as deeply evil criminals, but restores order and eliminates the chaos that they require to maintain their power. For, without chaos causing extreme suffering and deaths, none of those psychopaths would be able to tell their dupes that they are the only ones who can restore any
“order,” through violent terrorism that subjugates everyone under their firm hands. Nor can they also censor the truths that reveal their hypocrisy, which is exactly what causes the chaos in the first place.
Lastly, it is absolutely essential for all psychopathic wanna-be god to crush every tiny inkling of trusting, honest, gentle, caring, kind, just, equitable, selfless and God-like love from the lives of their dupes. They must tell enough lies to make their dupes completely paranoid and rigidly paralyzed by totally irrational fears. And they must rid their kingdoms of everything that any remaining loving and honest souls might deem to be truly worth living for. Otherwise, if the eyes of their elect dupes begin Page 1866
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to experience some just and God-like love, they may want to live for that cause—then utterly reject the psychopathic hierarchical systems which harm literally everyone in them. The elect may cast off their artificially induced paranoia and irrational fears, and stop serving those factious back-stabbing human gods who claw their ways to the tops of those hierarchies, which those liars designed for their own personal benefits. If their dupes stepped out of the delusions those psychopaths use to terrorize them into submission, those dupes might rebel against their enslavers. And dupes always outnumber the psychopathic elite, usually by ten to one. Furthermore, all the real work is always done by their dupes, especially by their elect dupes. So, if the dupes rebelled, the psychopaths would be left with absolutely nothing. Thus, all psychopaths also live in paralyzing fear and with extreme paranoia. All are terrified that their blinded, captive dupes, especially their enslaved elect, might somehow find out some truths and realities. And they must kill everyone who finds any truths, especially the loving elect, lest God teach, train and empower those elect to do His will, and nullify all of their evil works.
If psychopaths cannot deceive, manipulate, bribe or terrorize their dupes into submission, into a blind acceptance of their self-serving lies and delusions, all is lost. Of course, if those psychopaths do successfully manipulate or coerce their dupes into believing them and partaking in their darkness, all will be lost regardless. For psychopaths not only destroy everyone and everything they touch, but also destroy themselves too. Their lies to themselves transforms their lives into dark voids, where each psychopath’s mind of the spirit becomes more trapped in one’s own invented hell each day.
However, psychopaths love that kind of life, and thrive in it. This is why they gravitate towards the devil’s self-destructive and deadly religion of humanism, which teaches self-worship and helps them believe that they are indeed gods. More than any other religion, humanism effectively promotes the delusion that one is able to rule over one’s own destiny, and possibly even possess the lives of many inferiors, with the power to dictate the destinies of those inferiors as well. But psychopaths also love other amoral and “flexible” religions that accommodate their dark delusions, like humanistic forms of Buddhism, Hinduism and animistic religions. Conversely, psychopaths absolutely hate and cannot tolerate any true worship of the one Creator God by the spirits of His elect. For all psychopaths have awakened non-elect spirits, and know that God’s words and creations reveal only one harmonious, consistent body of absolute and universal truths. Then they also know that those truths always will penetrate the darkness of their lies and delusions, leaving them without anything to use for gaining their illicit power and income. Also, if elect spirits begin to awaken and walk in those truths, God’s wisdom and power working through those elect will inevitably and utterly destroy their hellish delusions that they created for themselves. So they loath the pure theism described by God’s Word.
The Gospels exposed all these traits of psychopathy manifested by those rogue council members and Pilate. For all of them, as with one mind enslaved and ruled by the same demonic spirits, assumed that Jesus’ disciples were just like them. All assumed that Jesus’ disciples would try to steal His body and lie, telling the people that He rose from the dead, just as He said He would. All those lying men thought that Jesus’ disciples would go for a power grab, and try to set themselves up as human gods ruling over a false church, based on a deception that they manufactured through their own cunning.
And, to this day, psychopaths and other non-elect still assume that this is what actually occurred at that time, then declare that all the foundational tenets of the New Covenant salvation are mere lies invented by deceivers. They think this what happened because their own religion of humanism itself
“succeeds” solely through those sames kinds of deceptions. Both secular and theistic humanists assume that all successful cults and religions are deceptions, since their own sects are actually that.
Now I admit that most elect cannot tell the difference between false and true religions. For most of their infantile and untaught spirits falsely assume that there is some good in the hearts of all human Page 1867
beings. Most refuse to acknowledge that most human beings have sleeping spirits, so most walk only according to duped minds of flesh, and are therefore amoral. And sleeping elect spirits cannot see that the non-elect will never become loving and honest. Even as they see how suffering causes some to become psychopaths, while the same suffering causes others to become more empathetic, loving and honest, those elect still refuse admit that there are two different kinds of spirits in human beings.
Most suppressed elect spirits will not allow themselves to distinguish between their own kind of spirits and the non-elect spirits, since most are duped into believing false humanistic anthropological doctrines. Humanists say all people are the same, that all have only one mind in a “soul” which has a
“free will,” a will that created itself, that made itself either good or evil. They even think a “soul” is powerful enough to instantly recreate itself whenever it desires, able to transform itself from evil to good, or from good to evil, anytime is chooses. And, in spite of never having been able to observe this supposed “free will,” in either themselves or anyone else, most elect believe this obvious lie.
Yet the fact remains that all God’s creations, through genuine science, proves the biblical teachings of predestination. Together with the Bible, all empirical observations prove another related truth as well, the fact that all humans were created with two minds. Biblical anthropological doctrines all consistently teach that each person has a mind of flesh and a mind of a spirit, where each kind of mind creates its own kind of thoughts and possesses its own kind of will. Then both science and the Bible tell us that both minds are created with immutable core attributes. Yes, both the mind of flesh and the mind of the spirit can learn new information and act upon it. However, aside from the fact that both the mind of flesh and the mind of the spirit can be taught and trained, in ways that either enhance or suppress its inherent attributes, both minds remain exactly what they created to be. And, although the brain of flesh may become damaged or altered through physical causes or even by things like prolonged suffering, in ways which can cause the physical brain to bear symptoms like low frustration thresholds or uncontrollable nightmares, the mind of the human spirit cannot be damaged or altered through any physical means. So, if a mind of flesh suffers damage, the mind of the spirit will still love or hate in the same way. Then the mind of one’s spirit may also be forced to exert far more control over the thoughts and decisions made in the chamber of one’s soul, by having to suppress its mind of flesh. Then, a non-elect soul may become a psychopath, but an elect soul may become even more like God, as the elect spirit wakens, learns from God’s Spirit, and rules its flesh.
Because there is always good in all elect hearts—that is, God always grows at least some love and also writes at least some truth in the minds of elect spirits, because His Holy Spirit always builds up at least a trace of an inner conscience in them—some elect assume that all other humans and even all animals are like them. But first of all, animals do not have an inner conscience, that is, they are not able to discern between good and evil. Animal spirits are pure, and always do what God commands.
But plant, animal and angelic spirits judge nothing. Only God and those created in His image judge between good and evil. Then it is a proven fact that not all people are like the elect. Yes, all have an outer conscience. Each absorbs a different array of principles from their parents and cultures, which each will write, edit and delete in their minds of flesh. But the principles forming the very loose and rickety structure of outer consciences definitely is not all good, and all of it consists of weak, fragile building materials, where some of the human moral teachings are outright evil and very destructive.
Even an outer consciences written by “Christian” parents and cultures consist primarily of cultural and even humanistic lies. So, if any human spirit wakes up and begins to manage the thoughts from its mind of flesh, which often occurs after a period of great suffering, that one’s outer conscience in the mind of flesh will often break. For the structure of that outer conscience consists of countless weak and contradictory principles. Since a mind of flesh is weak and irrational, it can easily accept Page 1868
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almost any foolish thing that any trusted source tells it, especially when one is young and malleable.
Then the mind of flesh will happily cling to that nonsense for life, if the spirit does not wake up in the person to question those irrational beliefs. Also, no humans are good teachers, because all are real sinners, and not one of those who create outer consciences is capable of being consistent or even honest. So relying on outer consciences developed by sinful human beings provides absolutely no hope for the salvation of individuals or humankind as a whole. But the mind of an elect spirit is very much stronger and far more rational. So, when an elect spirit wakes up, it easily crushes the abject nonsense in the outer conscience, then requires a solid reliable source of real, harmonious, rational and effective truth, which only the Spirit of God can provide. On the other hand, when a non-elect spirit awakens and begins to manage the thoughts and decisions in the chamber of one’s soul, that non-elect spirit also casts aside one’ outer conscience, but seeks its father from hell instead of God.
For those spirits hate the light of truth, and love only self-inflating lies, since they are like their father and all want to be gods who control of their own destinies. Thus, a non-elect life become fully amoral, evil in a truly psychopathic way. And not all psychopaths murder, directly, but all are evil.
Even the most deceived elect, those who once thoroughly believed all the lies fed to their outer consciences, who were daily brainwashed to think those lies were rational, possess spirits that can wake up enough, usually through danger and suffering, to discern between good and evil, then begin to judge between truth and lies. Then the awakened elect soul will start to nullify all that God deems to be unloving, unjust and wrong, and eventually labour for God’s just kingdom on earth. For God is always writing at least some wise, consistent, harmonious truths about His just, loving ways in the minds of all elect spirits. Thus, we know that not one mature elect souls would ever allow oneself to willingly say or do what those fake priests, false evangelicals and Pilate deliberately said and did.
And we also know that not one awakened, mature elect soul, such as Jesus’ true disciples, would ever steal Jesus’ body in order to perpetuate a deliberate lie, nor try to justify that lie by telling themselves that this evil will produce a greater good, by deceiving souls into believing His truths.
For all mature elect possess spirits that trust Yahweh God as their Lord, as the sole cause of all that occurs, and as the only Ruler of all destinies. Thus, all mature elect souls know that God never needs to deceive anyone to accomplish His greater good. Even today, many elect exist who would never commit such a crime and deception, although most elect spirits are dull, barely awake, with a weak and childish love, and are stupid enough to do things like that. Only non-elect false disciples in a false church, like those rogue counsel members, can hate God and intentionally do a thing like that.
So, from this account provided by Matthew, we can see how accurately he portrayed the manifest psychopathy of those false priests, fake evangelicals, Pilate and Rome. And even the most weak and immature spirits of the elect today can see that it was utterly impossible for any of the loving, honest, compassionate, just, repentant, humble, faithfully serving disciples of Jesus, who told all the people to worship Jesus as their only Lord and to called one another equal siblings, to commit a deception like stealing Jesus’ body, in order to perpetuate the teaching of Jesus. And, as for the nominal and sleeping elect who followed Jesus, most would lose their faith when Jesus’ body died, and the rest would be too smart to try a hopeless scam like that, or too afraid of Rome to risk crucifixion for attempting to steal His body from a sealed tomb in order to start an insurrection. Nor did even one of those true disciples want to form yet another fake humanistic church, where they themselves could become the human gods ruling over its members. None of those disciples had any selfish ambitions in the minds of their spirits. Rather, their spirits continuously suppressed and repented from selfish ambitions that rose up in their minds of flesh. From all we read in the New Covenant Scriptures about the apostles of the first-century church, not one ever displayed any desire to be a human god Page 1869
ruling over a false church, as an elite in a hierarchical system which exploits inferiors. None were ever like those psychopaths from that rogue council, nor like Pilate. Instead, all taught exactly what the Creator God Jesus taught, and all did so harmoniously. All believed that Yahweh God established a New Covenant priesthood of Israel, through a covenant ratified by Israel’s Messiah, who is God incarnate, so His Holy Spirit could personally teach, train and rule over the lives of each individual elect spirit who trusted in Him, so all would work together as one people with one mind for the good of all, where all equally sinful elect souls were being redeemed by their God Jesus, and Him alone.
Likewise, in the days before humanists corrupted the apostolic church at the end of the first century, many elect Jews and many Gentiles had been exposed to true biblical teachings about God and His ways, including biblical anthropological doctrines. So the spirits those elect, after some dangers and suffering of their flesh, with some maturing of their spirits worked by God Himself, were able to see through the lies and machinations of those fake priests and false evangelicals. For God’s light inside them exposed those lies and sins hiding under the cover of man-made darkness. Those elect realized that those lies were self-contradictory and not believable, because those elect had often experienced lies and oppression from both the false churches and Rome. Their suffering had awakened the minds of their spirits, at least enough to rationally analyze all those Roman humanistic lies they were told.
Therefore, Jesus’ first-century disciples logically concluded that the words of false priests and fake evangelicals were clearly lies. In other words, there were actually hundreds of thousands of Jewish and Gentile elect, possibly even millions at that time, who were no longer thoroughly duped by those humanists. They were nothing like the disciples of Satan and Trump today. Because of right and true biblical teachings, and because God awakened their spirits through the suffering of their flesh, huge numbers of elect entirely rejected the humanistic conspiracy theories, lies and delusions fed to them by the human gods of fake humanistic churches, and realized that Jesus was the prophesied Messiah, who had to die on a Roman cross for their sins, and that His Spirit of God raised Him from the dead.
Mat. 28:1-20,
Our Teacher Lives
“Now after the Sabbath, as it began to dawn on the first day of the week [i.e., Sunday morning], Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb. Behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from the sky, and came and rolled away the stone from the door, and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. For fear of him, the guards shook, and became like dead men.
“The angel answered the women, ‘Don’t be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus, who has been crucified. He is not here, for He has risen, just like He said. Come, see the place where the Lord was lying. Go quickly and tell His disciples, “He has risen from the dead, and behold, He goes before you into Galilee; there you will see Him.” Behold, I have told you.’
They departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to bring His disciples word. As they went to tell His disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, ‘Rejoice!’ They came and took hold of His feet, and worshiped Him. Then Jesus said to them, ‘Don’t be afraid. Go tell My brothers that they should go into Galilee, and there they will see Me.’
“Now while they were going, behold, some of the guards came into the city, and told the chief priests all the things that had happened. When they were assembled with the elders, and had taken counsel, they gave a large amount of silver to the soldiers, saying, ‘Say that His disciples came by night, and stole him away, “while we slept.” If this comes to the governor’s Page 1870
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ears, we will persuade him and make you free of worry.’ So they took the money and did as they were told. This saying was spread abroad among the Jews, and continues until this day.
“But the eleven disciples went into Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had sent them.
When they saw Him, they bowed down to Him, but some doubted. Jesus came to them and spoke to them, saying, ‘All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I commanded you. Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.’ Amen” (Mat. 28:1-20, WEB).
Harmonizing the accounts of Jesus’ resurrection in the New Covenant Scriptures is difficult, since each writer chose to record a brief summary of different details experienced by different individual eyewitnesses. And all of these witnesses were extremely shocked, afraid and, at the same time, hopeful and joyful. Yet none fully understood what was happening with everyone else at the time, and all left out a number of details which did not personally seem relevant to them. Meanwhile, the remaining core disciples, the eleven whom Jesus chose as His teaching assistants, were also heavily stressed at the time, since the powerful false church and ruthless Roman authorities, who had just murdered Jesus, were openly threatening to kill them. So their extreme and contradicting emotions, combined with a severe lack of sleep, did not produce a very cohesive, objective, analytical report.
Thus, on the one hand, accounts of Jesus’ resurrection are noticeably more erratic than the reporting of other events during Jesus’ ministry, those which the disciples witnessed when they were relatively calm, secure and rested. On the other hand, the New Testament provides more information about the miracle of Jesus’ resurrection than it did about any of His other true miracles. And all these details do harmonize into a complete account of an event that could not possibly have been invented by liars.
In our day, we often see how scientists and courts of law will hear the testimonies of eyewitnesses and the interpretations of evidence by experts, so they might comprehend exactly what occurred during a past event. Then other experts, trained to ask the right questions objectively, cross-examine the eyewitnesses and experts, to determine whether they are accurately and honestly providing the most reliable data and interpretations of that data. Then, after gathering the vetted testimonies and believable interpretations of evidence, scientists or courts complete the process of prioritizing and harmonizing the data, by applying inductive logic to derive information from the data, so they might reconstruct an accurate picture of the past event. And none but false scientists or fake courts invent false scenarios based on outward appearances interpreted by their own preconceived notions and biases, even before gaining enough data and information to make a rational and sound conclusion.
However, if scientists or courts do receive enough data from the eyewitnesses and enough reliable interpretations of sound evidence, and diligently vet all of the eyewitnesses and experts to find out who are the most reliable and honest, as well as to ensure that the hard evidence from the scene of the event has been accurately interpreted by the experts, they can become fairly confident that they understand what actually occurred, beyond reasonable doubt. And this is actually the kind of just and rational procedure that God’s Law commanded us to do in all our judgments of information. It is how God’s Law commands us to judge in all matters of life, including in our courts and scientific institutions. We are to use inductive logic to judge multiple carefully examined testimonies and expert interpretations of evidence. So, since Jesus fulfills God’s Law in us and through us, let us use these same principles to judge the testimonies of all the witnesses and all the Gospel interpretations of evidence regarding the resurrection of Jesus, so we can gain a good understanding of this event.
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There actually were very many eye-witnesses of Jesus’ resurrection, including Matthew and John, who each wrote an account of it. There were so many respected, honest, reliable eyewitnesses that even Jesus’ worst enemies never dared to outright deny that His body disappeared from the tomb.
Rather, they conceded that literally hundreds of witnesses saw someone who looked like Jesus. So, to counter the reports of Jesus’ resurrection, His enemies panicked and hurriedly patched together a totally implausible story, a half-baked conspiracy theory about His disciples stealing His body while the guards slept. Then they simply inferred that those who claimed to see Jesus did not actually see the real Jesus, merely a doppelganger, and that those who worked and lived beside Jesus for three years somehow mistook that doppelganger for Jesus, even while touching, seeing and hearing Him in person, right in front of them, and in broad daylight. Now, just as many believe the false preachers in our day also tout the lies of the obviously psychopathic fascist called Trump, many actually did believe those religious frauds who invented that false conspiracy theory. But those men proved themselves to be liars many times. Thus, they are completely unreliable witnesses and we must treat their testimonies as suspicious, either as a self-serving blend of truth and lies, or as outright total lies.
For, to begin with, to say that Jesus’ disciples stole His body while the guards slept, those disciples would have had to go out that night to hide near the tomb, then would have needed to watch those guards for many hours, hoping they would all fall asleep. Yet those disciples knew full well that the powerful chief priests and elders from the rogue council sent spies to follow them, waiting for some opportunity to accuse them of a sin or crime, in order to slander and kill those disciples. Thus, those disciples would have never dared to step outside their homes that night, during the Saturday Sabbath of the Passover week, lest the false church might seize them and stone them to death for breaking their Sabbath laws. Likewise, why would the disciples bother to wait for the Levitical guards to fall asleep, since all the Jews knew that the temple “policemen” never slept on duty? The guards would always keep one another awake, since the punishment for negligence during guard duty was not only the loss of their jobs and income, but also involved the burning of their robes while wearing them, resulting in extreme pain and lifelong scars. Furthermore, since they were also replacing Roman guards, and were securing a Roman seal, they then faced execution by order of the Roman governor.
On top of all this, the heavy stones covering the doors of all the tombs required several men to roll them up the ramp and wedge them in place. And this was a noisy task, since a stone door, weighing hundreds of pounds, would scrape against a stone wall as they rolled it back, producing a very loud sound, then another loud thud as it landed against a wedge. So it was impossible to roll the stone door away, to access the tomb, without the loud resulting noises waking the guards, even if those guards did fall asleep with their backs resting on that tomb’s door. The only way multiple guards could have slept through all that noise is if they were heavily sedated or knocked out cold. But how could the disciples possibly do either of these things? To sedate the guards, they would need to gain access to the guards food or drink back at their living quarters. Then the disciples would need to know which of the Levitical policemen would be chosen for that guard duty that night. But those guards had to be loyal thugs whom the secretive rogue council, who never revealed their plans to anyone outside their own tight circle, not even to their allies, would have selected. So how would the disciples know who they would be? In order to deeply sedate the chosen guards, they would need inside information, which they did not have, could not gain without inside contacts, and would not know how to use that information even if they did receive it. Then how would the disciples know what kind sedative to use for such a purpose, or what precise quantity to use, so the guards would not die and so that all would awake at the same time, then flee from the site of the tomb immediately after the disciples stole the body? Also, how could they secretly administer it to all the guards at Page 1872
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once? Or, if the disciples were far more skilled than ninjas or James Bond, they might have been able to knock out all the guards at precisely the same time and in a way where all would wake up at the same time too. But that kind of thing is only possible in the movies, never in real life. So the lie of the fake priests and false elders from the rogue council is unbelievable. But they did not have time to think about all these critical details before they invented their conspiracy theory. Besides, they did not really care what the masses thought. If any man dared to doubt their lie, they would simply beat or kill him. For psychopaths terrorize the masses into submission and force all to “believe” their lies.
Another detail Matthew mentioned was that none of the guards at the tomb received the usual punishment for supposedly falling asleep during their guard duty, for this crime of negligence, not from that rogue Jewish council nor from the Roman governing officials. And, by the time Matthew wrote his Gospel, he would have known who most those guards were. For, after the Passover, the permanent population of Jerusalem would have been only about 30,000, and news in the small, tight knit Jewish community would have travelled fast. So Matthew would have been able to tell if those guards had been executed, or at least scarred and burnt by the Jewish authorities. Also, as soon as Jesus went missing from dead, those guards would have become instantly famous among the Jews, among both the Jews who sided with Jesus and those who hated Jesus. Then the guards’ families and neighbours would have spread the word about how the authorities from the temple council meeting had refused to punish them but, instead, gave them a substantial amount of money. Then others would have witnessed most of those healthy and unpunished guards walking in the market place, buying all kinds of expensive goods, even the day after the event of Jesus having been removed from the tomb they had been guarding the night before. So the council’s conspiracy theory would not have been difficult to expose in Jerusalem, where so many local witnesses were very willing to confess.
Matthew wrote this account, regarding that unit of Levitical “policemen” guarding the tomb: “So, while they are leaving, look, after going into the city, some of the guard unit reported to the chief priests [about] absolutely all that happened. And, after gathering together with the elders to receive counsel, they gave sufficient silver to the guards, reasoning, ‘Say that His disciples, after coming at night, “stole Him while we were sleeping.” And, if this might have been heard by the governor, we will persuade him and you will carry on without concern.’ So, after receiving the silver, they carried on as they had been taught. And this reasoning has been spread among the Jews up to the current day” (Mat. 28:11-15, from: Πορευομένων δὲ αὐτῶν ἰδού τινες τῆς κουστωδίας ἐλθόντες εἰς τὴν
πόλιν ἀπήγγειλαν τοῖς ἀρχιερεῦσιν ἅπαντα τὰ γενόμενα. καὶ συναχθέντες μετὰ τῶν πρεσβυτέρων
συμβούλιόν τε λαβόντες ἀργύρια ἱκανὰ ἔδωκαν τοῖς στρατιώταις λέγοντες· Εἴπατε ὅτι Οἱ μαθηταὶ
αὐτοῦ νυκτὸς ἐλθόντες ἔκλεψαν αὐτὸν ἡμῶν κοιμωμένων· καὶ ἐὰν ἀκουσθῇ τοῦτο ἐπὶ τοῦ ἡγεμόνος, ἡμεῖς πείσομεν αὐτὸν καὶ ὑμᾶς ἀμερίμνους ποιήσομεν. οἱ δὲ λαβόντες τὰ ἀργύρια ἐποίησαν ὡς
ἐδιδάχθησαν. Καὶ διεφημίσθη ὁ λόγος οὗτος παρὰ Ἰουδαίοις μέχρι τῆς σήμερον ἡμέρας, SBLGNT).
Naturally, the ranking guards in the unit had to report this event to their superior officers, who were the chief priests, including both of the high priests at the time. And they told those chief priests
“absolutely all that happened,” meaning that they told the truth. For Matthew described what the guards told the priests by using the phrase, ἅπαντα τὰ γενόμενα. And here the plural form of the adjective ἅπας refers to “all, the whole ... all together” (BDAG3), and the aorist participle form of γίνομαι, with a preceding neuter plural article, refers to “the things that happened.” In other words, the guards did not lie, but told everything they saw and experienced. So the guards actually told those priests that they first felt a great earthquake (σεισμὸς ... μέγας). Then “an angel of the Lord descended out of the sky and, after drawing near, he rolled away the stone then remained over it.
Also, his image was as bright lightning and his garment white as snow” (Mat. 28:2, from: ἄγγελος ...
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κυρίου καταβὰς ἐξ οὐρανοῦ καὶ προσελθὼν ἀπεκύλισε τὸν λίθον καὶ ἐκάθητο ἐπάνω αὐτοῦ. ἦν δὲ ἡ
εἰδέα αὐτοῦ ὡς ἀστραπὴ καὶ τὸ ἔνδυμα αὐτοῦ λευκὸν ὡς χιών, SBLGNT). And the teenage apostle John may have actually been with Annas when the guards confessed, or may have known someone who heard those guards tell the story. Now, since these guards were obviously terrified and in a state of shock, the priests likely believed what they said, and realized that they did indeed see something spectacular, something that seemed to be a supernatural event. Thus, the priests did not command that those guards had to be punished. Yet, at the same time, those priests would not believe that a real supernatural event occurred, because they were Roman humanists. Thus, they likely thought that the disciples had somehow staged a magnificent magic show, a production of light, smoke and mirrors, to frighten the guards away. For, in their own pragmatic psychopathic minds of flesh, they had never believed in angels or God, nor in miracles. Their confidently arrogant minds of flesh “knew,” with all the certainty that the devil could muster in them, that all is material and absolutely nothing is spiritual. Still, they did not blame their simple-minded thugs, who were so inferior to them, for being so terrorized by the spectacle that they fainted, then woke up and quickly fled away from the tomb.
However, whether those guards saw something real or not, those priests had a big problem. For they had obtained a Roman seal from the governor, Pilate. They did this so they would be able to solicit the help of the Roman army to ensure a death penalty for anyone who opened Jesus’ tomb. And Pilate had entrusted them to provide their own temple guards, to serve as a custodian of that official seal. This meant that their rogue council was legally obligated to keep that Roman seal on the door of that tomb until the appointed time had elapsed. Yet this was only Sunday morning, and they were commanded to keep that seal securely attached until Monday at sunset—that is, until a full three days, 72 hours, had elapsed from the time of Jesus’ burial (i.e., Jesus was buried just before sunset on Friday). Now, if Pilate found out that their guards had failed to keep the seal secure, he most likely would demand a severe punishment or even the death penalty for the guards, possibly even for those council members who asked and took responsibility for that seal. Furthermore, they had yet another problem; Jesus was no longer securely lying in His tomb. Of course, men like them did not believe that angels came to open the door for Jesus, after He rose from the dead. For they believed in the Middle Platonic doctrines of “free will” and its associated doctrines of terrorizing the people into
“willing” themselves into compliance with their authorities. Thus, these priests believed they were the only gods who could control and rule over the “free wills” of all Jews, even the Messianic God incarnate they murdered. But now that Jesus’ body was no longer in the tomb, rumours would soon spread about Him rising from the dead, just as He said He would, within three days. So they now had to invent a lie to counter that rumour, a deception their loyal dupes could employ against the truth.
Since it was the first workday of the week, Sunday, the entire council of the Sanhedrin would have been gathered at their meeting place within the temple grounds, as they did on every workday. For they only vacated the place on the Sabbaths. So this would have been where the guards found their commanders, the chief priests. And those chief priests were probably milling around in a corner of the meeting place, discussing their recent crimes together with all the other members of their rogue council, with the elders in the quorum that had arrested and sent Jesus to be murdered by pagan Rome. Then, since many heads are better than two, the chief priests would have shared what the guards told them, but only with the elders who were loyal to them, in some quiet corner of the temple grounds. That entire rogue council likely discussed their problems and gave counsel. The chief priests would have repeated the entire story that the trembling and shocked guards told them, guards who were all experienced, hardened thugs. And most in that humanistic rogue council would have had a good laugh at the tale about an angel rolling away the door of the tomb, thinking that Page 1874
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those stupid and gullible guards were clearly duped by some kind of magic show, but they were obviously superior to those fools. After that good laugh, they would have tackled the more serious issues. For now they would need to appease Pilate, since the Roman seal was broken before the appointed time. And they also needed to confuse and sabotage the inevitable rumours that Jesus did actually rise from the dead. So each voiced a few thoughts and weighed the possible outcomes. Once they realized that no lie could adequately explain how the disciples could put on a magic show that was terrifying enough to make their hardened thugs faint and flee, they hastily chose the best and easiest lie that their simple dupes could believe. They would tell the people that the disciples stole the body while the guards slept. Then they would all go together and resolutely confirm, in one consistent testimony to Pilate, that the guards were not to blame. This would involve some other kind of lie, such as telling Pilate that someone drugged the guards’ food or drink. With these lies established by the testimonies of two or more reliable liars, their conspiracy theory would spread among their false churches. Then they would paid their crooked guards for their cooperation, so no one would dare to deny that their invented truths were lies. After all these plots and decisions, the priests returned to the waiting guards. While paying them, they commanded them to confirm what the council gods chose to declare as “the truth.” And, if anyone asked how Jesus’ disciples stole His body while they guarded it, they must arrest that one immediately. Then they dismissed the guards.
And remember, these particular temple “policemen” were not like the rest. Rather, these guards had been personally selected by the rogue counsel, solely because they had proven to be blindly loyal to them and to their causes. These guards were discrete and trusted thugs, criminals who never betrayed their bosses. And their gang leaders, the chief priests, also held enough damning evidence against them to have them executed. So, even if the guards wanted to, they could not tell the truth. Besides, most or all these thugs were also pragmatic psychopaths, just like the human gods they worshipped with blind obedience. So it would take only a few hours for those materialistic guards to “forget”
what they actually saw, then reason away any miracle or supernatural occurrence they witnessed. I have seen this often. The elect tend to rightly remember spiritual events, whatever they experience from God. But the non-elect are never able to remember even spectacular miracles accurately, like the healing of someone they knew well. For, as soon as they calm down, they begin to alter their own memories, telling themselves that they did not see what they actually saw. They will convince themselves that what they really saw was an illusion produced by fatigue, hunger or deception, or they transform the supernatural parts into a natural phenomenon, to explain it away. Yet each non-elect witness will then tell a different story regarding what they saw, each based upon one’s own invented and “rationalized” explanation, to explain away what each saw. Of course, since these priests were very experienced plotters, they knew that each guard might subsequently provide a contradicting testimony about what happened that morning. Then, as a result, the people might realize they were all lying. Therefore, to keep their testimonies consistent, the priests commanded the guards to tell the people that the disciples stole Jesus’ body while they slept (i.e. the priests used an imperative plural form of the verb λέγω as a command: “Εἴπατε ὅτι ...”, “You guards say that ...”).
So, by the time those guards had waited an hour or two for the priests to finish their discussions with their co-conspirators, about the problems arising from this event, those guards had likely already completed the process of explaining away the realities of what they actually saw. And, by that time, they were fully willing to take a bribe and lie for their commanders. However, they would still be very worried about the possibility that the governor, Pilate, might be angry about their failure, then command them to be arrested and punished severely, possibly even executed in public. Thus, the priests had to reassure them that, if Pilate found out the seal had been broken before the appointed Page 1875
time, “we will persuade him and you will carry on without concern.” Now, since those priests would also be culpable for the breaking of the seal, the guards knew those politically savvy priests would work very hard to appease Pilate with some other lie, and would succeed, if those guards would remain silent. So the guards trusted the priests to invent a quasi-believable story for Pilate, then merrily went on their way, with a big cash bonus in their pockets. Yet notice here how Matthew said the guards “carried on as they had been taught.” The verb translated here as “taught” was an aorist passive form of the verb διδάσκω, used by religious Jews, like Matthew, as a theological technical term. Whenever devout Jews, like Matthew, used this verb, it referred to the religious teachings about life and faith by rabbis, and to the kind of biblical teachings priests were supposed to provide for the people, even for the Levitical “policemen” working for them. So, by using this particular verb, Matthew was mocking those fake priests, indicating how they were “teaching” those guards how to more effectively lie in their testimonies, and how to sabotage the truths they knew to be true.
Then Matthew, who wrote his Gospel about 30 years after that day, told us that this ridiculously absurd and unbelievable conspiracy theory, invented through panic in the spur of the moment, had been “spread among the Jews up to [his] current day.” In fact, it is still circulating among the Jews, and even among their Gentile secular humanist siblings, to this very day in the 21st century. For, no matter how stupid a lie might be, it will be believed by all who find it convenient and profitable to lap up that vomit. Yet those kinds of people do not realize how dangerous it is to promote a culture of lies, since those who live by lies will also have lies used against them too. It is always better to tell the truth and form a culture which demands the genuine truth from all, so true and loving justice is provided for all. But false churches have never realized the importance of pure truth. Thus, false churches have always suffered for their cultures of secrecy and lies. For example, antisemitic thugs around the world now proclaims the lies of a European bigot named Goedsche, who published his deceptions back in 1868. By the end of that century, those lies were effectively used by the Russians, to encourage the murdering and plundering of Jews during their pogroms. And those lies became so potent because Jews refused to openly preach their doctrines, and would never engage in any honest public apologetic discussions. Of course, to be fair, Roman persecutions, raging since the second century, prevented Jews from doing so. But those earlier persecutions also began for the same reasons. And the Jews did not even try to share any of the teachings they followed, not in the way that the true elect of the New Covenant Israel would broadcast truths into the Roman world order.
So, by the 1920’s, various slightly altered versions of Goedsche’s lie were translated into about a dozen languages, and published under titles like The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Thus, today, many fascist deceivers, like Q-Anon dupes and Neo-Nazis, repeat those lies under various deceptive titles. So Jewish leaders should defend themselves from those lies by applying biblical principles from God, by using inductive logic to expose the abject nonsense from those publications. Yet, while all this conflict occurs, they refuse to apply those biblical principles, since it would expose their own religious lies which they feed to their people, including irrational lies about the resurrection of Jesus.
Therefore, it is not hard to conclude that those priests chose to invent and spread that lie, and their current disciples choose to perpetuate that lie to this very day, because they all lack an understanding of God’s Law. Yet they surely knew, and their false churches in our day still know, the basics of how to rightly apply God’s Law, in order to seek real truth and expose lies. They also knew and now know the Ten Commandments, which forbid lying. Furthermore, God’s Word has condemned any attempt to twist partial truths into deceptions and lies, by withholding the whole truth, as they do.
And, since God’s Law commanded us to diligently search out the whole truth, then forbade us to make judgments until we cross-examine the testimonies of all witnesses (i.e., both the eyewitnesses Page 1876
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and expert witnesses who explain the implications of physical evidence), all who somehow claim to worship the one true God, but do none of this, are sinning directly against God and their own people.
Since the fake churches of that day completely ignored God and His Word, then directly disobeyed His laws, and because current churches still practise those sins, it is a tautology to admit that they have always been intentionally sinning against God and their own people. Likewise, since Christians claim to worship Jesus, and Jesus told us that He came to fulfill literally every word of God’s Law in and through all His true disciples, yet the vast majority of those who claim to be Christians also perpetuate countless lies that have been thoroughly exposed as malignant inventions of bigots, and also refuse to even begin to fulfill God’s Law, we must then conclude that most who claim to be Christians are actually not true Christians at all. For all true Christians will learn to faithfully, rightly and diligently apply God’s Law, even in a fulfilled way, against all lies, especially against the evil lies such antisemitism and the dehumanization of their other siblings in the family of humankind.
True Christians have awakened elect spirits which are actually being taught and trained by the Holy Spirit of Jesus. Therefore, they cannot be deceived for long, certainly not in the way most churches have remained wallowing in their convenient and profitable lies for almost two millenniums now.
But now look at the events occurring when Jesus rose from the dead, as described in the historical records of the Gospels. Matthew wrote: “Now after the close of the Sabbath, at the beginning of dawning into the first [day] between Sabbaths, Mary the Magdalene and the other Mary came to look upon the tomb. And, behold, a great earthquake occurred. For an angel of the Lord descended out of the sky and, after drawing near, he rolled away the stone, then remained over it. Also, his image was as bright lightning and his garment white as snow. Now, from the fear of him, the guards trembled, then became as dead men. Yet the angel had responded. He said to the women, ‘You
[women] do not fear! For I know that you [women] seek Jesus, the one having been effectively crucified. He is not here. For He was raised, just as He said. Come, clearly observe the place where He had been lying. Then, soon after having departed, you [women] reason with His disciples, that He was raised from the dead. And look, He is leading you people into Galilee. You people will see and attend to Him there. Look, [it is just as] I said to you people.’ Then, after quickly departing from the tomb in fear and great joy, they ran to bring word to His disciples. And look, Jesus met with them, saying, ‘Rejoice!’ So the ones who walked took hold of His feet and lay prostrate before Him.
Then Jesus reasoned with them, ‘Do not be afraid. You go. Bring word to My brothers, so they should depart into Galilee. There they will see and attend to Me’” (Mat. 28:1-10, from: Ὀψὲ δὲ
σαββάτων, τῇ ἐπιφωσκούσῃ εἰς μίαν σαββάτων, ἦλθεν Μαριὰμ ἡ Μαγδαληνὴ καὶ ἡ ἄλλη Μαρία
θεωρῆσαι τὸν τάφον. καὶ ἰδοὺ σεισμὸς ἐγένετο μέγας· ἄγγελος γὰρ κυρίου καταβὰς ἐξ οὐρανοῦ καὶ
προσελθὼν ἀπεκύλισε τὸν λίθον καὶ ἐκάθητο ἐπάνω αὐτοῦ. ἦν δὲ ἡ εἰδέα αὐτοῦ ὡς ἀστραπὴ καὶ τὸ
ἔνδυμα αὐτοῦ λευκὸν ὡς χιών. ἀπὸ δὲ τοῦ φόβου αὐτοῦ ἐσείσθησαν οἱ τηροῦντες καὶ ἐγενήθησαν
ὡς νεκροί. ἀποκριθεὶς δὲ ὁ ἄγγελος εἶπεν ταῖς γυναιξίν· Μὴ φοβεῖσθε ὑμεῖς, οἶδα γὰρ ὅτι Ἰησοῦν τὸν
ἐσταυρωμένον ζητεῖτε· οὐκ ἔστιν ὧδε, ἠγέρθη γὰρ καθὼς εἶπεν· δεῦτε ἴδετε τὸν τόπον ὅπου ἔκειτο·
καὶ ταχὺ πορευθεῖσαι εἴπατε τοῖς μαθηταῖς αὐτοῦ ὅτι Ἠγέρθη ἀπὸ τῶν νεκρῶν, καὶ ἰδοὺ προάγει
ὑμᾶς εἰς τὴν Γαλιλαίαν, ἐκεῖ αὐτὸν ὄψεσθε· ἰδοὺ εἶπον ὑμῖν. καὶ ἀπελθοῦσαι ταχὺ ἀπὸ τοῦ μνημείου
μετὰ φόβου καὶ χαρᾶς μεγάλης ἔδραμον ἀπαγγεῖλαι τοῖς μαθηταῖς αὐτοῦ. καὶ ἰδοὺ Ἰησοῦς
ὑπήντησεν αὐταῖς λέγων· Χαίρετε· αἱ δὲ προσελθοῦσαι ἐκράτησαν αὐτοῦ τοὺς πόδας καὶ
προσεκύνησαν αὐτῷ. τότε λέγει αὐταῖς ὁ Ἰησοῦς· Μὴ φοβεῖσθε· ὑπάγετε ἀπαγγείλατε τοῖς ἀδελφοῖς
μου ἵνα ἀπέλθωσιν εἰς τὴν Γαλιλαίαν, κἀκεῖ με ὄψονται, SBLGNT). This described the first moment of His resurrection, and it was witnessed by the women as well as by the temple guards at the tomb.
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One of the first things we should notice is that a group of women, the female disciples of Jesus, went out to visit the tomb very early on Sunday morning. But they would have never gone, and the male disciples would have never let them go to the tomb alone, if anyone among the disciples had known that the Roman governor had placed an official seal on the tomb door, or if they had known that Pilate allowed the rogue members of the Jewish council to post their hand-picked thugs as the guards of that Roman-sealed tomb. For, if any of the disciples knew this, not even the men would have gone to the tomb, much less allow women to go there alone. For, if the guards saw those female disciples coming, they may have beaten those women senseless, or even killed them. After all, by visiting the grave of Jesus, whom the guards’ commanders hated, would have proved their affiliations with Him, and proved they were the enemies of those violent guards, as well as the priests commanding them.
So it is obvious that the disciples were grieving together in some private place during the Passover Sabbath, likely in Bethany, and had not gone into the city or the temple. For, if they did, they would have surely heard the news about the tomb being sealed and guarded. Only if they did not know any of this, would they have allowed those women to visit the tomb. So we can safely assume that all of the disciples were hiding on the Sabbath day, and talking to no one, since the powerful rogue council members and Romans had just condemned their Lord to a tortuous death on a cross, a death which was reserved for insurrectionists. And this meant that both the Roman and Jewish authorities were now considering all of Jesus’ closest disciples to be insurrections as well. Thus, the disciples had to remain as perfectly lawful and passive as possible, to prove they were not insurrectionists. Then the many peaceful supporters of innocent Jesus would serve as a barrier, to protect them from the illicit and criminal authorities. Otherwise, those godless religious leaders might attack them next. All of His disciples definitely would have feared a similar fate, and avoided public places as much as they could. But this would also make it impossible for them to hear the news about Rome sealing the tomb and guarding it with thugs commanded by the priests. This also meant that, if an angel had not come to terrify the guards so much that they passed out and “became as dead men,” those women would have walked into a deadly trap. Then the men searching for them would have soon have fallen into the same trap. And this is likely what the rogue council was also thinking. When they had the tomb sealed and guarded, it was probably for this purpose, to catch and kill the disciples of Jesus.
So the first thing we see here is that God timed the coming of the angel and the resurrection of His dead body perfectly. Just before the women arrived at the tomb, God violently shook the ground under the guards, knocking them to their knees. As a supernatural event, this likely would not have been an earthquake felt anywhere in the city, not even in a few steps away from the tomb. For the women did not seem to fall like the guards did. So it was a very local shaking of the ground, and its sole purpose was to neutralize the guards. And Matthew, who was with the male disciples that day, began the next clause with the conjunctive particle γάρ, indicating the reason for the earthquake. And he said it was because “an angel of the Lord descended out of the sky” upon that very spot, where the tomb was located and the guards were standing. Then an angel, who shone “as bright lightning”
and wore a “garment white as snow,” rolled away the heavy stone from the door and “remained over it” (ἐκάθητο ἐπάνω αὐτοῦ), possibly hovering in the air. This would have been the last thing those guards saw, because they were so terrified that they passed out and “became as dead men.” After this, once the guards were lying unconscious and harmless, Jesus would have stepped out of the tomb, in His physical body, restored to life. And He must have then walked away, while the angel stayed and watched Him. Then, before the guards woke and fled in terror, the women saw the scene.
The earthquake, the angel’s arrival and the fainting of the guards must have occurred shortly before the women arrived, because they did not see Jesus there, and must not have encountered any awake Page 1878
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guards. For, according to Matthew, the only awake person the women saw, after arriving at the tomb, was the angel, who gave them a message from God, that is, from Jesus. However, if the women did not encounter Jesus as he left the tomb, and did not seem to meet any awake guards there either, although they were the first to arrive at the empty tomb, then we need to ask how Matthew learned about all that happened there that day. For Matthew was not there, but hiding with the other disciples in some room, likely in a house in Bethany. Thus, it seems that the women were near the tomb, saw the earthquake and the guards fall from some distance away, paused for moment in fear, then chose to run to the tomb to see what happened. Or it is also possible that one of the guards at the tomb that day told Matthew or one of his friends, what occurred that morning. Maybe one of the guards, who had been committing many crimes for the false priests, had an elect spirit and repented after seeing the angel descend from the sky, as well as the body of Jesus rise up and walk out of the tomb alive.
Now Matthew may have received all this information from those women. But the details about the angel rolling away the door of the tomb, or how the guards reacted, do not seem to be things those women could have seen from a distance. Thus, it suggests that one of the guards there that day must have willingly told Matthew what occurred. And, if a guard did so willingly, it implies that at least one guard repented after that day. We cannot dismiss the possibility that one of the murderous thugs working for those psychopathic high priests and the rogue council members may have repented and began to follow Jesus. For even terrible criminals have truly repented. And, since any elect soul can become the worst of sinners, just as the apostle Paul did, we know that it is impossible to judge between elect and non-elect souls, certainly not based solely on external behaviours. For consider how we judge a scientific theory to be false if it is unable explain even one detail which it claims to explain. We only refrain from judging a theory to be false as long as we see every detail explained by it. So, likewise, if we see a man who is a violent liar, and never repenting into the truth, we might hold to the theory that he has a non-elect spirit. But, if we see the same man truly repent into the just and loving truth, then consistently bear real fruits of repentance, in a spontaneous way, straight from his spirit in his heart, then we may need to completely abandon the theory that he has a non-elect spirit. We may then need to relate to that man through a new and more consistent theory, the theory that this man must be one of God’s elect children and a member of our family, a brother of Jesus.
Jesus wants us to judge by works. Yet literally all human beings are sinners, both all the elect and all the non-elect. So, by simply observing sins, we cannot logically conclude anything about the spirit of any person, neither whether it is a non-elect or elect spirit. By observing sins, it is totally impossible to judge whether anyone has either an elect spirit or a non-elect spirit. Rather, our God Jesus taught us that only the non-elect are not able to repent into the truth, and that their spirits are never able to truly worship the one real God. Therefore, the only way we can possibly judge anyone by their works is by their good works, never by their bad works. Only if we we see someone do even just one truly good work through the kind of love that we see in our God Jesus, then this a proof that the one who did that truly good work might be one of God’s elect. In fact, everyone who genuinely repents into the real truth, with life-changing intentions and motives of one’s spirit, must have an elect spirit.
When Jesus commanded us to judge others by their fruits, that is, by their words and deeds, we need to realize that there is only one possible and logical way to do that. We can only judge others by their good fruits, never by their bad fruits, since 100% of all human beings have bad fruits, and anyone who denies the fact that 100% of human beings are sinners is a liar who denies this truth that is categorically stated in God’s Word. And, if our God Jesus commanded us to judge in this way, then this is also how He will judge us. If Jesus finds even one good word or deed in the life of a sinner, Page 1879
just one solitary good work done through His kind of just and equitable love, then He will recognize that sinner as a child of the heavenly Father, then complete and perfect that soul during the last day.
So it is indeed possible that one of those thugs working for those psychopathic high priests actually did repent into the truth, taking Jesus as his only Lord and God. We cannot logically assume the hypothesis or theory that none of those thuggish temple guards would ever tell any of the apostles what happened that day. We cannot rationally conclude that all of those guards were evil non-elect children of Satan, detriment to society and unforgivable. For literally all the elect are sinners. So literally all the elect are able, through their amoral minds of flesh, to become incredibly evil. But we also know that Jesus paid the full price for literally every elect sinner’s lifetime of lies and sins. So Jesus paid the price to restore the relationships of literally all the elect with their Creator and Father.
And, since He has restored that relationship, He is now able to work inside all the elect, to bring all into repentance, to teach and train their spirits about the truths which enable all to love as He loves.
Of course, all the redeemed elect will surely lie and sin again while they live in weak and easily deceived flesh upon this earth. Yet we also know that Jesus will eventually heal each and every elect soul completely. Jesus will teach and train each elect spirit to perfectly fulfill all God’s loving, just laws by the end of the judgment day. So, at the right time on earth, if Jesus wakens and completes enough of an elect one’s redemption, we can then safely trust that freed sinner. For Jesus trusts and frees that one from all condemnation and guilt, from all punishments, and has released him or her to walk among us as our sibling. So, yes, it is actually possible that one of those murderous thugs, who lied and murdered for the false priests, could have had an elect spirit which later repented. One of those guards may have testified about that day and joined the disciples of Jesus. On the other hand, Matthew, or a friend, may have simply heard about those details from the women, who saw the events from a distance. Or the truth may have been confessed by a broken and traumatized non-elect guard to the people of his synagogue, simply because that supernatural event shattered his world view, forcing him to seek others who might make sense of what he saw, because he felt his own eternal doom in the eyes and light of that angel. Regardless, what honest Matthew wrote was true.
Matthew ended his account of Jesus’ resurrection by saying the disciples did return to Galilee and met with Jesus, where He gave them the Great Commission: “So the eleven disciples had travelled into Galilee, up to the mountain where Jesus arranged for them [to meet]. And, after seeing Him, they fell prostrate. Yet these differed in opinion. Then, after approaching, Jesus reasoned with them, saying: ‘All decision-making authority was given to Me, in heaven and upon the earth. Therefore, after having departed, teach so that [souls from] all the nations become [My] disciples, immersing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to guard all, as much as I gave you [disciples] charge of. And look, I Myself am with you [disciples] all [your] days, until the entire completion of the age’” (Mat. 28:16-20, from: Οἱ δὲ ἕνδεκα μαθηταὶ ἐπορεύθησαν εἰς
τὴν Γαλιλαίαν εἰς τὸ ὄρος οὗ ἐτάξατο αὐτοῖς ὁ Ἰησοῦς, καὶ ἰδόντες αὐτὸν προσεκύνησαν, οἱ δὲ
ἐδίστασαν. καὶ προσελθὼν ὁ Ἰησοῦς ἐλάλησεν αὐτοῖς λέγων· Ἐδόθη μοι πᾶσα ἐξουσία ἐν οὐρανῷ
καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς· πορευθέντες οὖν μαθητεύσατε πάντα τὰ ἔθνη, βαπτίζοντες αὐτοὺς εἰς τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ
πατρὸς καὶ τοῦ υἱοῦ καὶ τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος, διδάσκοντες αὐτοὺς τηρεῖν πάντα ὅσα ἐνετειλάμην
ὑμῖν· καὶ ἰδοὺ ἐγὼ μεθʼ ὑμῶν εἰμι πάσας τὰς ἡμέρας ἕως τῆς συντελείας τοῦ αἰῶνος, SBLGNT).
Matthew’s last chapter is very brief, especially considering that he was one of the eleven who witnessed all these events, and personally spoke with the women who went to the tomb. Matthew obviously shortened the narrative for some reason—perhaps because he found it difficult to write about those terrifying times, just after the false church and Romans murdered his sinless, wise and compassionate Teacher, whom he came to love so much, which also caused him to fear that they Page 1880
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might murder him as well. Or Matthew may have written such a brief summary simply because he ran out of paper, and had no money to buy more. For paper was extremely expensive back then. Still, his Gospel provided all the essentials, all we truly need to know. His Gospel became the most solid and reliable foundation of all the other teachings in the New Testament. For it is full of useful details and information, worthy of exacting examination. However, as we look more closely into Matthew’s account of Jesus’ resurrection, it would be best to also harmonize all that he told us about this event with the other Gospels and the Book of Acts as well, to fully comprehend Matthew’s brief account: 1. Jesus chose to rise from the dead “after the close of the Sabbath, at the beginning of dawning into the first [day] between Sabbaths” (Ὀψὲ δὲ σαββάτων, τῇ ἐπιφωσκούσῃ εἰς μίαν
σαββάτων, Mat. 28:1). Relating an account of an eyewitness, Mark also claimed Jesus rose
“after the Sabbath occurred ... very early on the first day between Sabbaths” (διαγενομένου
τοῦ σαββάτου ... λίαν πρωῒ τῇ μιᾷ τῶν σαββάτων, Mark 16:1,2). Luke, an able historian, investigated the day of Jesus’ resurrection more extensively, and provided a more detailed report. Then he also told us that Jesus rose “on the first day between Sabbaths, from the very early [part of] dawn” (τῇ ... μιᾷ τῶν σαββάτων ὄρθρου βαθέως, Luke 24:1). Likewise, John, an eyewitness of that day, just like Matthew, told us that Mary Magdalene started going to the tomb “on the first day between Sabbaths ... at dawn [while it was] still dark” (Τῇ ... μιᾷ τῶν
σαββάτων ... πρωῒ σκοτίας ἔτι, John 20:1). And notice that John did not say she arrived at the tomb before sunrise, but only stated that she left the residence before sunrise. Thus, since Jesus rose shortly before the women arrived, it was after the women left their residence. For it would have taken them about 10 to 30 minutes to walk to the tomb on the outskirts of the small city, assuming they were walking from either Bethany or someplace inside the city.
So Jesus rose at twilight on Sunday morning. This was about eleven and a half hours after the sun set at about 5:30 am on the previous day, on the 16th of Nissan (May 8) in AD 28, to end the most holy Saturday Sabbath. And Jesus’ body was set in the tomb about half an hour before the sun set to end the first day of the Passover, on Friday, the 14th of Nissan (May 6), at about 5:30 pm. Thus, His body remained in the tomb for about 36 hours. That is, the half hour on Friday, the whole 24 hours of the Saturday Sabbath, and 11.5 hours of Sunday (from sunset on Saturday to about 5:30 am on Sunday) comes to a total of 36 hours. And this was, by the Jewish reckoning of days, “three days and three nights.” For this phrase included any parts of each 24-hour day, any parts either before and after sunset. Consequently, Jesus did fulfill the biblical sign of Jonah, who remained in a fish for “three days and three nights,” as well as His own prophecy about remaining in His tomb for this specified amount of time, before He rose from the dead. And Jesus also declared that this would be the only sign He would grant to any “evil and adulterous generation” who demanded a miracle which proved that He is the genuine prophesied Messiah of God’s Word (Mat. 16:4). Therefore, this is the one miracle we should present to such doubters, but fully and logically exegete it for them.
2. A group of something like seven to twelve women went to the tomb on the Sunday morning.
And they came for a specific purpose, to finish preparing Jesus’ body. As Mark told us: “...
they purchased aromatic substances so that, after coming, they might oil Him” (ἠγόρασαν
ἀρώματα ἵνα ἐλθοῦσαι ἀλείψωσιν αὐτόν, Mark 16:1). Actually, the women did not purchase that aromatic oil themselves, certainly not on the previous Sabbath day. For John explained that Nicodemus bought those expensive perfumes and spices for the women on the previous Friday, as Jesus was being crucified (John 19:39). Still, on that first day of the week, the women assuredly went to the tomb for this purpose, to finish the burial task they began on Page 1881
the previous Friday afternoon. After all, on Friday, the day of His crucifixion, they merely performed the bare essentials of a respectable Jewish burial, since they were forced to hastily place His body in the tomb during the last hour before sunset on Friday. Also, since they would have been very anxious to complete the proper Jewish burial for their beloved Lord, they would have set out to do this work as soon as they possibly could, leaving shortly before the sun rose, so they would arrive when the sun rose to provide enough light to do their job.
And we can be sure that a substantial group of women went to the tomb, because they had to roll away the stone door, as well as lift and unwrap the body to perfume it, then lift and wrap His body again after they oiled it. So they probably would have taken at least seven women, since that was the Jewish number of completion, and they would think in this way. But more may have gone. Now Matthew only names two of the women, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, the mother of James and Salome/Joses (v 28:1). Mark did the same (v 16:1). Then John only named one of the women, Mary Magdalene (v. 20:1). However, these Gospels only named the women involved in their narratives. But none said that only those women whom they named went to the tomb. And Luke later revealed that there were indeed more than one or two women who went to the tomb that day. First he said, “they came to carry the aromatic
[oil] they prepared” (ἦλθον φέρουσαι ἃ ἡτοίμασαν ἀρώματα, Luke 24:1). Then Luke named some of the women he had previously referred to, and Luke’s words indicate that there were at least five women: “Now they were Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of Joseph and the rest together with them” (ἦσαν δὲ ἡ Μαγδαληνὴ Μαρία καὶ Ἰωάννα καὶ
Μαρία ἡ Ἰακώβου καὶ αἱ λοιπαὶ σὺν αὐταῖς, Luke 24:10). Here “the rest” (αἱ λοιπαὶ) means at least two others, but more likely refers to three or more. So 5 or more women were there.
3. Just before, or just as the women left their residence, in the twilight—while it was still dark enough to keep the temple guards on edge as they stood in the graveyard, where they likely superstitiously feared the advent of a ghost in the night—an angel of the Lord came to the tomb, made the ground shake beneath the feet of those guards, opened the tomb’s stone door, then remained over the door, likely suspended in mid-air. The fear of this radiant angel caused at least some guards to pass out for a time, since we are told they “became as dead men” (Mat. 28:2-4). But falling unconscious in this way, from a sudden shock, does not last long. So the guards soon woke and fled in terror. Yet their officers calmed their thoughts and dutifully reported the incident to their commanders, who were the chief priests gathered in their room at the temple, providing their usual weekday judicial services (Mat. 28:11-15).
4. The group of women “were arriving at the tomb after the rising of the sun” (ἔρχονται ἐπὶ τὸ
μνημεῖον ἀνατείλαντος τοῦ ἡλίου, Mark 16:2), since the walk would have taken them anywhere from ten minutes to half an hour. As the group of women approached the tomb, they were discussing the problem of having to roll away the stone door over the entrance to the tomb. For, although they had gathered together enough women to possibly do this, they were still doubting their ability, since that task usually took at least three or four strong men.
Thus, they were wondering if some good Jewish man might be near, so they could ask for his help. “And they reasoned to themselves, ‘Will anyone roll back the stone for us, from the door of the tomb?’” (καὶ ἔλεγον πρὸς ἑαυτάς· Τίς ἀποκυλίσει ἡμῖν τὸν λίθον ἐκ τῆς θύρας
τοῦ μνημείου;, Mark 16:3). This not only indicates that the women and the other disciples did not know that the Jewish authorities had a Roman seal placed on the tomb, then posted the Levitical guards there, but also that the disciples did not yet believe Jesus, when He said He would rise from the dead on the third day. So these women continued on their walk to the Page 1882
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tomb, “and, after looking up, they perceived that the stone had been rolled away, with the effect of leaving the door open, although it was exceedingly large” (καὶ ἀναβλέψασαι
θεωροῦσιν ὅτι ἀποκεκύλισται ὁ λίθος, ἦν γὰρ μέγας σφόδρα, Mark 16:4; cf. Luke 24:2, John 20:1). So the group of women saw the opened door of the tomb, but clearly did not see any person there, no angel, no guards and no Jesus. So it seems the women arrived not long after the guards saw the angel open the door, and after those guards had already fled from the area.
Then this also implies that Matthew actually obtained his information, about all the guards saw and experienced at the moment Jesus rose from the dead, from one of those very guards.
5. When the group of women saw the tomb already opened, they would have stood there for a few moments, stunned, thinking that thieves or the Jewish authorities or the Romans had taken the body. For the women had looked in the tomb and found it empty. Jesus’ body was missing. The tomb and the area around it had been completely abandoned. So, when Mary Magdalene saw this, she rushed back to tell the other disciples, leaving all the other women at the tomb. “Then she ran and went to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus had been cherishing, and she reasoned with them, ‘They carried away the Lord, from the tomb, and we have no idea where they laid Him!’ Thus, Peter and the other disciple departed and were going to the tomb. So the two were running at the same time, and the other disciple ran ahead, faster than Peter, and came up to the tomb first. And, leaning forward, he was looking at the linen cloths lying [there]. Nevertheless, he did not enter. Then Simon Peter was also coming, following him, and he entered into the tomb, observing the linen cloths lying [there]
as well. Now the cloth which was upon His head [was] not with the cloths lying [there], but rather having been rolled up apart from [them], in another place. Therefore, even the other disciple entered, the one having come first to the tomb. Even he saw and he believed [the words of Mary]. For they did not yet have any way of knowing the Scripture, that it is necessary for Him to have risen from the dead. Thus, the disciples went out again by themselves” (τρέχει οὖν καὶ ἔρχεται πρὸς Σίμωνα Πέτρον καὶ πρὸς τὸν ἄλλον μαθητὴν ὃν
ἐφίλει ὁ Ἰησοῦς, καὶ λέγει αὐτοῖς· Ἦραν τὸν κύριον ἐκ τοῦ μνημείου, καὶ οὐκ οἴδαμεν ποῦ
ἔθηκαν αὐτόν. ἐξῆλθεν οὖν ὁ Πέτρος καὶ ὁ ἄλλος μαθητής, καὶ ἤρχοντο εἰς τὸ μνημεῖον.
ἔτρεχον δὲ οἱ δύο ὁμοῦ· καὶ ὁ ἄλλος μαθητὴς προέδραμεν τάχιον τοῦ Πέτρου καὶ ἦλθεν
πρῶτος εἰς τὸ μνημεῖον, καὶ παρακύψας βλέπει κείμενα τὰ ὀθόνια, οὐ μέντοι εἰσῆλθεν.
ἔρχεται οὖν καὶ Σίμων Πέτρος ἀκολουθῶν αὐτῷ, καὶ εἰσῆλθεν εἰς τὸ μνημεῖον· καὶ θεωρεῖ τὰ
ὀθόνια κείμενα, καὶ τὸ σουδάριον, ὃ ἦν ἐπὶ τῆς κεφαλῆς αὐτοῦ, οὐ μετὰ τῶν ὀθονίων
κείμενον ἀλλὰ χωρὶς ἐντετυλιγμένον εἰς ἕνα τόπον· τότε οὖν εἰσῆλθεν καὶ ὁ ἄλλος μαθητὴς ὁ
ἐλθὼν πρῶτος εἰς τὸ μνημεῖον, καὶ εἶδεν καὶ ἐπίστευσεν, John 20:2-8). Here “the other disciple” is the author, John, who was a teenager at the time, and easily able to outrun Peter.
Now notice here how John—who wrote this account of that day about sixty years later—was able to remember many details about the joyous time when he discovered that Jesus rose from the dead, far more than he was able to remember about the day Jesus died on the cross.
Clearly, Jesus’ resurrection was not nearly as traumatizing to the young John as the death of Jesus was. Now, since John was a teenager, a youth without many rights and did not want to cause any trouble, he dared not enter the tomb after he outran Peter. He only entered after his senior, Peter, went inside. Then both men saw the expensive linen burial cloths laying there, likely on the stone slab in the tomb. This puzzled them (see Luke 24:12, and notice how Luke recorded this event out of sequence, since he was not an eyewitness). Both were wondering why anyone would take the body but leave all the potential income from the Page 1883
expensive linen cloths behind? And why would thieves take the time to roll up the head covering, according to Jewish traditions, then set it apart from the other cloths, since they could have washed and sold it for a good penny too? But now they believed Mary. Someone did indeed remove Jesus’ body. Yet they could not believe that His torn, pierced and beaten body could have risen from a death like the one He experienced. Then these two disciples, and likely most of the women, departed, gathering in Jerusalem to mourn. Still, after seeing the burial cloths left behind, both Peter and John likely began to wonder if it just might be possible that Jesus did what He said He would do, that He had raised His body from the dead.
6. After running to tell the male disciples what had happened, Mary Magdalene returned to the tomb as well, likely not long after Peter and John did. But she obviously could not run as fast as them, certainly not wearing the typical dress that Jewish women wore. And, when the other disciples decided to leave, she chose to stay, either because they left before she returned or because she wanted to see if anyone might come and tell her who took Jesus’ body, and where they put it. Then the other Mary (mother of James) remained with her, since women did not like to be alone outside the house. Shortly after the others left, two angels appeared to these two women, although only one of the angels actually spoke to them, while the other remained silent. And that angel seemed to only address one of the women, Mary Magdalene, not actually the other Mary. This is why Matthew and Mark would have only mentioned one angel, and also why John would have only mentioned one woman, Mary Magdalene. For leaving out details was a common practise back then, not to deceive, but so the essential story could be written with the fewest words possible, since paper was costly. But John, who ran to the tomb that day, provided an accurate order of events, although he too left out some details.
John wrote that, after the others left: “Yet Mary [Magdalene] stood and remained in front of the tomb, outside, weeping. Then, as she was weeping, she leaned over into the tomb and beheld two angels sitting, [dressed] in white [garments], one at the head and one at the feet of where the body of Jesus had been lying. Then this one was reasoning with her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’ She was reasoning with them, ‘Because they carried away my Lord, and I do not know where they laid Him’” (Μαρία δὲ εἱστήκει πρὸς τῷ μνημείῳ ἔξω κλαίουσα. ὡς
οὖν ἔκλαιεν παρέκυψεν εἰς τὸ μνημεῖον, καὶ θεωρεῖ δύο ἀγγέλους ἐν λευκοῖς καθεζομένους, ἕνα πρὸς τῇ κεφαλῇ καὶ ἕνα πρὸς τοῖς ποσίν, ὅπου ἔκειτο τὸ σῶμα τοῦ Ἰησοῦ. καὶ λέγουσιν
αὐτῇ ἐκεῖνοι· Γύναι, τί κλαίεις; λέγει αὐτοῖς ὅτι Ἦραν τὸν κύριόν μου, καὶ οὐκ οἶδα ποῦ
ἔθηκαν αὐτόν, John 20:11-13). At this point, John neglected to mention that Mary entered the tomb with the other Mary, after leaning into the entrance and seeing the angels there. John also omitted much of what the angel said to Mary, and skipped right to the part where Jesus met with her. But others recorded the full conversation that one of the angels had with Mary.
Matthew wrote down a paraphrase of what that angel said to the two women (Mat. 28:5-7).
Then Mark also wrote: “And, after entering into the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right, having been dressed in a white robe and they were amazed. So he reasoned with them, ‘Do not be amazed. You [women] are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, the one having been crucified, resulting in His death. He was raised. He is not here. Look at the place where they laid Him. Rather, you women go tell His disciples, even Peter, that He is going ahead of you all into Galilee. You people will see Him there, just as He told you” (καὶ εἰσελθοῦσαι εἰς
τὸ μνημεῖον εἶδον νεανίσκον καθήμενον ἐν τοῖς δεξιοῖς περιβεβλημένον στολὴν λευκήν, καὶ
ἐξεθαμβήθησαν. ὁ δὲ λέγει αὐταῖς· Μὴ ἐκθαμβεῖσθε· Ἰησοῦν ζητεῖτε τὸν Ναζαρηνὸν τὸν
ἐσταυρωμένον· ἠγέρθη, οὐκ ἔστιν ὧδε· ἴδε ὁ τόπος ὅπου ἔθηκαν αὐτόν· ἀλλὰ ὑπάγετε εἴπατε
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τοῖς μαθηταῖς αὐτοῦ καὶ τῷ Πέτρῳ ὅτι Προάγει ὑμᾶς εἰς τὴν Γαλιλαίαν· ἐκεῖ αὐτὸν ὄψεσθε, καθὼς εἶπεν ὑμῖν, Mark 16:5-7). So Mark’s paraphrase of what that angel said to Mary is very similar to Matthew’s. But notice here how Mary seemed to think she was speaking to a young human man dressed in a white robe. Angels are androgynous heavenly beings, but the greatest of them, the messengers sent by God to His elect children, usually appear as young human men to us. Elect humans should remember this. Since God Himself took on a human body as Jesus, and also made His greatest angels in human forms, His elect children on earth exist in the most blessed of all forms. So we should diligently and faithfully serve all God’s other creations in the same just and loving way that He and His most authoritative angels do.
Then Luke wrote this: “And it happened, while being perplexed themselves about this, look, even two men in shining robes presented [themselves] to them. So, after they became frightened and bowed [their] faces toward the ground, [the angels] said to them, ‘Why are you [women] seeking the living among the dead? He is not here, but was raised. Remember the way He reasoned with you [disciples], while being in Galilee, saying that it is necessary for the Son of mankind to have been handed over into the hands of sinful people, even to be crucified, and to have risen on the third day.’ Then they were reminded of His words” (καὶ
ἐγένετο ἐν τῷ ἀπορεῖσθαι αὐτὰς περὶ τούτου καὶ ἰδοὺ ἄνδρες δύο ἐπέστησαν αὐταῖς ἐν
ἐσθῆτι ἀστραπτούσῃ. ἐμφόβων δὲ γενομένων αὐτῶν καὶ κλινουσῶν τὰ πρόσωπα εἰς τὴν γῆν
εἶπαν πρὸς αὐτάς· Τί ζητεῖτε τὸν ζῶντα μετὰ τῶν νεκρῶν; οὐκ ἔστιν ὧδε, ἀλλὰ ἠγέρθη.
μνήσθητε ὡς ἐλάλησεν ὑμῖν ἔτι ὢν ἐν τῇ Γαλιλαίᾳ, λέγων τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ὅτι δεῖ
παραδοθῆναι εἰς χεῖρας ἀνθρώπων ἁμαρτωλῶν καὶ σταυρωθῆναι καὶ τῇ τρίτῃ ἡμέρᾳ
ἀναστῆναι. καὶ ἐμνήσθησαν τῶν ῥημάτων αὐτοῦ, Luke 24:4-8). In this account, which Luke gleaned from an eyewitness (who was likely Mary Magdalene herself), the angels simply rebuked her for being so determined to find the dead body of Jesus, through her lack of faith in His teachings about His resurrection. This was also implicit in the other Gospel accounts.
However, in Luke’s account, the angel only mentioned Galilee as the place where Jesus first taught them that His body had to die by the hands of sinners. Yet Luke left out the part where the angel asked Mary to tell the other disciples to return to Galilee, where Jesus would then teach and encourage them, in peace, without interference from the threatening and violent Jewish authorities. Still, we clearly see, from all these other Gospel accounts, that the angel in the tomb said much more to Mary Magdalene than John chose to write in his own account.
7. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary left the tomb, then met Jesus just after this, possibly on the road skirting the city wall, leading to the Fish Gate, about 400 meters/yards to the north.
Before revealing Himself to anyone else, He appeared to these two women. They were the first whom the angels told about His resurrection from the dead and the first to see Him alive, in His body of flesh. For Jesus expected His male disciples, whom He taught the most, while the women were always involving themselves in the social and bodily needs of the group, to trust that He rose from the dead. For He told them that He would die and rise from the dead, and explained the prophecies of Scripture to them, all that also indicated that He would rise from the dead. Yet those men were all now busy grieving for Jesus and lamenting about how someone stole His body. This seems to be why Jesus appeared to the women first, since they were being led into error by the men. Furthermore, it also proves that our God Jesus, all His angels, and all heaven trusts the testimonies of women, since all these sent these women to testify to the men, and all expected the men to believe them. Then, after His resurrection, the very first word Jesus spoke to elect human beings on earth in all time was an exhortation to Page 1885
“Rejoice!” He uttered only the word, Χαίρετε, a present (durative) imperative form of the verb χαίρω, a command to make a continuous practice of rejoicing. And this means that we are all able to rejoice after His resurrection, forgetting what is behind and pressing on toward the goal of salvation that Jesus purchased for us on the cross, since He now lives to teach and train our spirits until we will be able to find full joy in the love and justice of His holy ways.
Even though the angel told the two women that Jesus had risen from the dead, visions of what He might look like, now that He lived again after dying, were not imaginable. So, when the women actually saw Jesus, standing before them in the flesh, they were shocked, amazed and not quite sure how they should feel about this. But Jesus exhorted them to continuously practice the rejoicing of their spirits, because of the restoring life He would be feeding to their souls. So they “took hold of His feet and lay prostrate before Him,” clinging to Him, lest He might leave them again. For, after He had left them by dying, their lives were filled with sorrow and confusion. Yet Jesus did not plan to be with them forever in the flesh. Jesus had a better future in mind for them. Our holy God’s Spirit would now dwell in our hearts, together with our own infantile and ignorant human spirits, so we could then be counselled, reminded, taught and and trained by Him, all day and every day of our entire lives on earth.
Still, Jesus had some works that needed to be done first, through His risen body of flesh on the earth. For He knew there would be deniers of His resurrection, and He had to ensure that enough reliable witnesses existed to dispel those doubts, at least for those with elect spirits bearing the inherent ability to believe realities and truths. Therefore, Jesus told those women,
“Do not be afraid. You go. Bring word to My brothers, so they should depart into Galilee.
There they will see and attend to Me.” For, in Galilee, His disciples would be safe from those who plotted to murder Jesus, who would now plot to murder them. There, in Galilee, Jesus could comfort and assure their spirits well, so they could better understand all that happened, then confidently testify about the New Covenant salvation by the world’s risen Messiah. Of course, His disciples took some time before they did what Jesus asked, although they did go to Galilee eventually. Meanwhile, Jesus pressed the critical fact of His resurrection upon His bewildered disciples—upon His eleven remaining core disciples and hundreds of others—in order to become each disciple’s personal living Teacher regarding all matters of life and faith.
8. Now Mark told us that the women said nothing to anyone after the angel asked them to tell the other disciples about Jesus’ resurrection (Mark 16:8). But Mark, while interviewing those female eyewitnesses, did not seem to hear what they were telling him. For the reason the two women did not immediately obey the angel, and tell the other disciples that Jesus had risen, was because they had met with Jesus on the road before they could. Then Mark apparently thought that Jesus appeared only to Mary Magdalene on another occasion, not while both women were walking back to the residence to inform the other disciples, also on the same day that the angel spoke to both of them. Thus, Mark later reported how the risen Jesus appeared first to Mary Magdalene, and how she then went to tell the disciples that Jesus had risen (Mark 16:9-10). But the man who was there that day, Matthew, corrected this error of Mark, telling us that Jesus came to both women while they were returning from the tomb, just after meeting the angel. Still, all that Mark wrote was true, albeit with implications of a wrong sequence of events. And Mark also accurately reported some of the subsequent events.
Mark then provided this account, about how the male disciples reacted after Mary testified about having personally met the risen Jesus: “And they, after hearing that He is living and He Page 1886
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was visited by her, did not believe [it]. Yet, after these things, He was manifested in another natural form to two of them while [they were] walking, to journey into the countryside. After departing, they also reported to the rest. They believed nothing [said] by those ones. So eventually, He was manifested to the eleven while [they were] reclining at the table. Then He rebuked their unbelief and hardness of heart, since they did not believe those clearly seeing Him having been raised” (κἀκεῖνοι ἀκούσαντες ὅτι ζῇ καὶ ἐθεάθη ὑπʼ αὐτῆς ἠπίστησαν.
Μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα δυσὶν ἐξ αὐτῶν περιπατοῦσιν ἐφανερώθη ἐν ἑτέρᾳ μορφῇ πορευομένοις εἰς
ἀγρόν· κἀκεῖνοι ἀπελθόντες ἀπήγγειλαν τοῖς λοιποῖς· οὐδὲ ἐκείνοις ἐπίστευσαν. Ὕστερον δὲ
ἀνακειμένοις αὐτοῖς τοῖς ἕνδεκα ἐφανερώθη, καὶ ὠνείδισεν τὴν ἀπιστίαν αὐτῶν καὶ
σκληροκαρδίαν ὅτι τοῖς θεασαμένοις αὐτὸν ἐγηγερμένον οὐκ ἐπίστευσαν, Mark 16:11-14).
Luke must have also interviewed at least one of those two women (likely Mary Magdalene, since the other older Mary may have passed away by the time Luke and Mark were gathering information for their Gospels, about 20 or 30 years after Jesus rose from the dead). But Luke missed the part about those two women meeting Jesus on their way back from the tomb. He also seemed to think the angel spoke to the entire group of women. But Matthew and John, eyewitnesses who saw that day unfold, corrected him. Still, Luke’s account, like Mark’s, was accurate. And Luke also chose to remain somewhat ambiguous about the precise order of events, implying a degree of uncertainty, and never outright stating who did what at which particular time with complete confidence. So Luke also said that the other disciples did not believe the two women, after those women said Jesus had risen from the dead (Luke 24:9).
The men did not believe those women even after seeing an empty tomb and in spite of Jesus previously teaching them that He would rise on the third day. Then another detail Luke missed was that, when Peter ran to the tomb and found it empty, young John had also run to the tomb with Peter. Of course, Luke was not likely told that John was with Peter at the time, so this omission is forgivable. On the other hand, Luke expounded on Mark’s report about the two men who met Jesus while walking in the countryside. Luke said it occurred on the same day the women returned from the tomb, which was Sunday. And the number of details Luke provided, including the name of one of the men, means he likely interviewed that one.
Luke told us: “And look, on the same day, two of them were travelling to a town named Emmaus, [which was] a full distance of 60 stadia [= 11.5 k or 7.2 miles] from Jerusalem. And they talked to one another about all these events having occurred and their effects. Then it happened, as they talked and reasoned together, even Jesus Himself drew near, travelling together with them. Yet their eyes were being restrained, for the purpose not to recognize Him. So He said to them, ‘What are these concepts which you [men] are tossing around to one another, going here and there, and gloom having been established?’ So one by the name of Cleopas responded. He said to Him, ‘Are You only dwelling far from Jerusalem and You do not know the things having occurred in her throughout these days?’ Then He said, ‘What?’
So the [men] told Him: ‘Things about Jesus the Nazarene, who became a male prophet, powerful in work and word before the face of God and all the people, how the chief priests and our rulers indeed handed Him over into condemnation of death and crucified Him. Yet we had been hoping that He is the one intending to redeem Israel. But indeed, even together with all these things, this third day is leading away from what things happened. Nevertheless, certain women from us also astounded us. They came early up to the tomb and did not find His body. They came to proclaim even to have seen a vision of angels, ones reasoning Him to be alive. And some of the ones together with us departed, up to the tomb, and they found [it]
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in that way, even just as the women said. But they did not see Him.’ Then He said to them, ‘O
unwise and dull ones, to [those with] a heart having a reason to believe upon all which the prophets uttered. Had it not been necessary for the Messiah to suffer these things and enter into His glory?’ Then, after beginning, from Moses and all the prophets, He explained things about Himself in all the Scriptures. And they arrived in the town where they were going.
Then He acted as though He was to travel farther, and they compelled Him, reasoning,
‘Remain with us because it is toward evening and the day has worn away.’ Then He entered, intending to remain together with them. And it happened, while He was being seated at the table with them, having taken the bread, He blessed it. After breaking [it], He distributed to them. So their eyes were opened. They recognized Him. Then He became invisible before them. And they said to one another, ‘Is not the heart of [each one of] us being set on fire? It was in us as He had been uttering words to us on the way, as He was opening the Scriptures to us.’ Then they rose up the same hour, returning to Jerusalem, and found the eleven, and those together with them having been grouped together, saying to Simon that the Lord truly has been raised and has been seen. And they declared the things during the day and how He was recognized by them by the breaking of the bread” (Luke 24:13-35, ALT). Of course, by the time these two men returned to Jerusalem, it would have been after dark, likely about seven or eight o’clock on Sunday evening. So, in the way the Jews calculate their days, it was the beginning of Monday. And this is when Luke said Jesus appeared to the whole group, likely because those others did not believe what these two men or the two women told them.
For God’s Law required only two reliable witnesses for any judgment, and now they had heard twice from two honest and reliable witnesses, first from two women, then two men.
9. John was there that evening, when the two disciples returned from Emmaus, declaring that Jesus rose from the dead, although John did not mention them in his brief account of that night. John also witnessed and wrote about the women who saw Jesus that morning. Now, when he wrote his Gospel, 20 or 30 years had already past since the three synoptic Gospels and the Book of Acts were penned. So those books had been copied and widely circulated among the New Covenant churches by then. Thus, John must have read them long before he added his Gospel, and would have known how they so briefly summarized the 40 days that Jesus walked among them in a body of flesh after His resurrection (Acts 1:3), before He ascended—which occurred just days before He sent His Holy Spirit into them, on the Day of the Pentecost (Feast of Weeks). And, in the more than sixty years since Jesus’ resurrection, many had caused confusion by inventing heretical teachings based on the popular religious teachings of Middle Platonism, some of which exploited the simplified resurrection reports.
Of course, the doctrine of Jesus’ resurrection was mocked, attacked and exploited by both the Old Covenant Jews and the secular critics of Christianity, more than most other teaching of true New Covenant Jewish disciples. For Jesus’ resurrection was a powerful sign of eternal life and the existence of spiritual realities beyond life in the flesh. So materialists wanted to believe this resurrection of the true disciples’ dead Teacher was a myth, while others used the sensationalistic story to attract dupes they could exploit. And, by the time John gave us his Gospel, most eyewitnesses of that simple, quiet, calm, hopeful and joyous resurrection of Jesus had died. So John would have felt obligated set the record straight, to explain more about all that occurred during the 40 days that Jesus’ risen body walked among them, so that his testimony, as an eyewitness, might confirm that it was not a myth, and help myth-makers and duped elect souls see that Jesus was not a resurrected Roman humanist, but our own Page 1888
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compassionate, loving God who patiently ministers to us through our fleshy doubts and fears.
John began by explaining what happened on Sunday evening, on the first day Jesus rose from the dead: “Therefore, during evening on that day, the first day between Sabbaths, Jesus came, even [with] the doors having been closed where the disciples were, due to fear of the Jewish
[authorities]. He also stood in [their] midst and reasoned with them, ‘Peace [come] to you
[disciples].’ Then, after saying this, He showed [His] hands and the side [of His chest] to them [i.e., where the Roman spear pierced through His side into His heart]. Thus, the disciples rejoiced after seeing the Lord. Then Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace [come] to you [disciples]. Even as the Father sent Me out on a mission, I send you [disciples].’ And after saying this, He took a breath and reasoned with them, ‘Completely receive the Holy Spirit. If you [disciples]
might have forgiven [or forsaken] the sins of certain people, they will have been already forgiven for them with resulting effects. If you [disciples] might not be forgiving [or retaining]
[the sins] of certain people, they will have been already not forgiven with resulting effects.’
Yet Thomas, one of the twelve, the one being called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came” (John 20:19-25, ALT). So, at the hour of Sunday’s sunset, Jesus came and commanded His disciples to fully receive/accept His Holy Spirit (indicated by an aorist imperative form of λαμβάνω). For He would soon send His Holy Spirit of God to them. And the reason they must receive or accept His Spirit was because they would need to make important judgments for or against certain people, by either forgiving or not forgiving the sins of many who came to them, judgments which would have already been made by God in heaven, in order to produce the appropriate effects (i.e., this was indicated by the theological passive forms of the perfect tenses of the verbs ἀφίημι and κρατέω). For their missions would fail if they did not do God’s will, if they aided and abetted some sinners whom God did not forgive while also condemning some whom God forgave, since this would prevent God from helping them.
Luke’s account of Jesus coming to the disciples that night included some details from other eyewitnesses. However, Luke ended this account by skipping all the other times that Jesus appeared to His disciples, in the flesh after His resurrection. After his account in his Gospel, Luke jumped right to the event where Jesus ascended into heaven, in a way that made some think His ascension occurred on Sunday evening, hours after He rose from the dead. Then, later, when Luke wrote the book of Acts, he explained that a full 40 days had passed before Jesus ascended (Acts 1:3). And this demonstrates how that ancient method of compressing reports, for the sake of brevity (and saving the cost of paper), may result in misconceptions.
Luke’s account of that Sunday night, when our risen Lord Jesus visited His anxious and unbelieving disciples who were fearfully hiding from the Jewish authorities, began when the two disciples had just returned from Emmaus, after seeing Jesus, and were telling the other disciples about their experience with Him: “Now, as they were uttering these things, [Jesus]
stood in the midst of them. And He said to them: ‘Why are you [disciples] having become so troubled with resulting anxieties, and according to what lines of reasoning rising up in the heart belonging to each of you? Look closely at My hands and My feet, because I am He.
You [disciples] touch Me and take heed, because a spirit does not have flesh and bone, even in the way you [disciples] perceive Me having.’ Then, after saying this, He showed the hands and the feet to them. Now, after the joy and amazement, while they were still disbelieving, He said to them: ‘Hold something edible here!’ So they gave a piece of cooked fish to Him and, after taking [it], He ate [it] in front of their faces. Also, He said to them, ‘These, My words which I uttered to you [disciples] while being together with you, [were] because it is Page 1889
necessary for all things to be fulfilled. [They] had been effectively written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms.’ Then He opened the mind of each of them, producing comprehension of the Scriptures. So He said to them, ‘Because it had been effectively written in this way, [that] the Messiah [was] to have suffered and to have risen from the dead on the third day, even repentance and forgiveness of sins [was] to have been preached in His name unto all the nations, having begun from Jerusalem. You [disciples] are witnesses of these things. And look, I Myself am sending out the promise of My Father upon you, on a mission. So you [disciples] settle down in the city until you might have been clothed with power belonging to whom originated from on high” (Luke 24:36-49, ALT).
So Luke seemed to think that, on that Sunday evening, on the very first day Jesus rose from the dead, He told the disciples to “settle down in the city” (καθίσατε ἐν τῇ πόλει), that is, in Jerusalem. Luke appeared to believe that Jesus wanted them to remain in Jerusalem until He sent them “power belonging to whom originated from on high,” which meant power from Him, our God Jesus, the Messiah. For Luke assumed they would remain in Jerusalem in the same way many Passover pilgrims remained there until the Pentecost. And they would receive the power of His His Holy Spirit on that day, just as Jesus had previously taught. For, while Jesus was with them, before His crucifixion, He explained to them that the mission of His Holy Spirit would be to teach, train and otherwise counsel them. So Luke knew that the disciples were in Jerusalem during the Pentecost, but he did not realize that Jesus had been in Galilee with His disciples. There He told them to return to Jerusalem and remain there, since they were to wait there until they received His Holy Spirit. When Luke interviewed witnesses about the resurrection of Jesus, two or three decades after that event, Luke obviously did not understand that Jesus and His disciples spent some time in Galilee, and it was there that He told them to return and remain in Jerusalem. Still, all the details in Luke’s Gospel are correct, and only some implications from his presentation of details may lead to a misunderstanding.
10. John, an eyewitness, told us about a second time Jesus came to the disciples, while they were still hiding from the Jewish authorities inside Jerusalem, before they went to Galilee. Now Thomas was not present when Jesus came to their room the first time, and was still refusing to believe that Jesus had risen from the dead. He even said, “If I had not perceived [each]
scar of the nails in His hands, and thrust my finger into [each] scar of the nails, as well as thrust my hand into His side, I most assuredly could not believe [that He rose from the dead]”
(John 20:25b, ALT). Then John told us: “And, after eight days, the disciples were inside again, and Thomas with them. Jesus comes after the doors had been closed and He stood in their midst, then said: ‘Peace [come] to you [disciples]. After that, He reasoned with Thomas:
‘Bring your finger here and observe My hands. Even bring your hand and thrust [it] into My side. And do not be unbelieving, but rather believe.’ Thomas responded and said to Him, “My Lord and my God.’ Jesus reasoned with him, ‘Because you have perceived Me and now realize I am real, you have believed and now act on that faith. Those not having seen and having believed [are] blessed” (John 20:26-29, ALT). After this, they all travelled to Galilee.
11. While in Galilee, Peter decided to go fishing, likely because Jesus told them to go there after He last appeared to them, and because impulsive Peter could not tolerate sitting around idle, wasting time. As Peter left, six other disciples decided to go with him, including Thomas, Nathanael, James, John and two other disciples. So John, who wrote about this event, was there that day, with the others. All went out in Peter’s fishing boat and sailed into the Lake of Galilee that afternoon. They most likely planned to use lamps to attract the fish, then cast a Page 1890
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round, weighted net over them. After the weighted sides of the net sank, they would tug on ropes tied to corners and close the net. So the seven fellowshipped in the boat “... and in that night they caught nothing. So, after dawn already came, Jesus stood on the shore. However, the disciples did not know and never began to realize that He is Jesus. Then, Jesus reasoned with them, ‘Do you not have any meat?’ They responded to Him, ‘No!’ So He said to them,
‘Cast the net at the right side of the ship and you will find [some fish].’ Therefore, they cast
[the net], and they no longer had the ability to fully draw it [into the boat] because of the large number of fish. Then the disciple, whom Jesus loved, said to Peter, ‘He is the Lord!’
Thus, Simon Peter, after hearing that He is the Lord, belted and tied on the outer garment, because he was inadequately dressed, and cast himself into the lake. Yet the other disciples came with the boat—for they were not far from the land but, at that time, [out] about 200
cubits [i.e., about 100 metres or 300 feet]—dragging the net of fish. Then, as they got out [of the boat] onto the land, they saw a sitting fire and a fish lying [on the fire], as well as bread.
Jesus said to them, ‘Now carry off the fishes which you caught.’ Thus, Simon Peter rose and dragged the net onto the land, full of a great number of fish, 153, and being so many, the net had not been torn. Jesus said to them, ‘Come! Eat!’ So, having realized He is the Lord, none of the disciples dared to ask Him, ‘Who are you?’ Jesus comes and takes the bread, then gives [it] to them, likewise also the fish. This already [was] the third time Jesus had been manifested to the disciples after having been raised from the dead” (John 21:3d-14, ALT).
12. After the seven disciples and Jesus ate that meal on the shore, Jesus spoke to Peter. And He engaged in the kind of questioning which a Jewish rabbi performs when he is hearing a sinner’s confession, such as before the sinner is going to the mikveh, to ensure a right repentance into real truths with right motives and intentions of the human spirit: “Then, after eating, Jesus reasoned with Simon Peter, ‘Simon, [son] of John, are you loving Me [as] much as these ones?’ He reasoned with Him, ‘Yes Lord. You Yourself know that I am cherishing You.’ He reasoned with him, ‘Feed My lambs.’ He reasoned with him again, a second time,
‘Simon, [son] of John, are you loving Me?’ He reasoned with Him, ‘Yes Lord. You Yourself know that I cherish You.’ He reasoned with him, ‘Do all that is needed to care for My sheep.’
He reasoned with him a third time, ‘Simon, [son] of John, are you cherishing Me?’ Peter was caused to grieve, because He said to him on the third time, ‘Are you cherishing Me?’ And he said to Him, ‘Lord, You Yourself know all things. You Yourself understand that I cherish You.’ Jesus reasoned with him, ‘Feed My sheep. Most assuredly I reason with you, while you had been a young man, you were putting on the belt yourself and were walking about wherever you were willing [to go]. Yet, when you might grow old, you will stretch out your hands and another will put the belt on you, then carry [you] where you are not willing [to go].’ So He said this signifying what kind of death he will glorify God. And, after saying this, He reasoned with him, ‘Follow Me [as My disciple].’ Peter, after turning around, was looking at the disciple whom Jesus loved [like His own child], who also leaned back upon His chest during the supper, still following [as His disciple]. Then he said, ‘Lord, is everyone the one betraying You?’ Therefore, after seeing this one, Peter reasoned with Jesus, ‘Lord, so [is] he the same?’ Jesus reasoned with him, ‘If I will him to remain until I am coming, what [is it] to you? You Yourself be following [as a disciple] for My benefit.’ Thus, this word went out among the brothers, that this same disciple is never dying. Yet Jesus did not say to him that he is never dying, but rather, ‘If I will him to remain until I am coming, what [is it] to you?’”
(John 21:15-23, ALT). So Jesus asked Peter if he was loving Him, with a just, pure, God-like love from his spirit, as indicated by the ecclesiastical definition of the present (durative) form Page 1891
of the verb ἀγαπάω. Jesus asked this twice, and twice Peter answered by saying he was merely cherishing Jesus, as his highly valued Lord, as indicated by the present (durative) form of the verb φιλέω. And both times Jesus told Peter to serve His people, for loving the real God means serving Him by serving His people, and one who does not serve His people does not love God. Then, the third time, Jesus also used the verb φιλέω. And this made Peter think that Jesus was even doubting whether he truly cherished Him as His highly valued Teacher and Lord. So Peter grieved. However, Jesus clearly knew and never doubted Peter’s love and cherishing. Actually, here Jesus was obviously teaching Peter how to see himself.
Impulsivity tendencies or disorders, involving a wide spectrum of different psychological classifications, with different degrees of dysfunctionality in each, are “hard-wired” into the physical brains of almost thirty percent of the world’s population. And this segment of the population not only suffers directly from these “disabilities” in pressured, autocratic social situations, but actually possess advantages in certain kinds of works, since they benefit from several valuable attributes associated with those disorders as well. Also, of course, there are both elect and non-elect among them. So these physical “problems” with brains of flesh will affect and limit the ability the elect to “feel” and express love from their spirits. Peter seems to have been one such elect soul, possessing a brain within the impulsivity disorder spectrum.
It seems clear that Peter found it difficult to “feel” his spirit’s love and cherishing through the hindered emotions produced by his “faulty” brain of flesh. And, because of the incident at the high priests’ residence a little more than a week before this day, where Peter denied Jesus three time, Peter was thinking there was something seriously wrong with him, something lacking in his spirit and faith. Peter thought he did not love Jesus enough and was unworthy to be His disciple. Peter knew he did not possess the same “natural” emotions that most of the others did, that he was not neurotypical. Yet he tried to hide these perceived inadequacies from Jesus and the other disciples. And that is what Jesus seems to have been exposing here.
Then Peter pointed to John, since he thought Jesus was accusing him of not cherishing Him.
For John, who was impulsive because he was just a teenager, had gone with Peter to the high priest’s house and seems to have even followed that psychopath, Annas, like a disciple. Yet a closer look at this conversation reveals that Jesus was not accusing Peter of anything wrong at all. Rather, Jesus was wisely counselling Peter, coaxing Peter to cast aside his anxieties about not “feeling” and processing his emotions in the same way others did. Jesus knew Peter surely did have an elect spirit which both loved and cherished Him. Jesus knew this perfectly, which is why He repeatedly told Peter to simply focus on his job, as His chosen assistant teacher, and “feed” truth to His “lambs,” truth to His immature elect. Young John also saw the love in Peter’s spirit, for Jesus and for God’s people, although Peter had a problem with
“feeling” and expressing that love. And John’s skill in spiritual observation caused him to write about this incident, proving how our Lord Jesus cuts through a heart’s misconceptions.
Jesus started out by asking Peter if he loved Him as much as the other disciples, knowing that Peter was incapable of fully processing emotions in the same way the others did, neither his love for Him nor for the other disciples. And Peter felt guilt, since he knews Jesus loved him, and so did the other disciples. But Petter did love Jesus and the other disciples, more than he realized that he did. Also, Jesus and the others openly and naturally expressed their love for one another. And, of course, so did Peter, but in his own way. Peter’s spirit actually did truly love Jesus and those others, but he could never feel, say or do what they felt, said and did in Page 1892
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the same way. So Peter tried to hide his “fault.” So Peter told Jesus that He surely knew that he cherished Him. This indicates that Peter was an honest man, whose love would not allow him to lie to his beloved God, Jesus. Peter could not “feel” his love, not instantaneously and freely through the emotions of his flesh. So he admitted to Jesus that he merely cherished Him, which was Peter’s way of apologizing for his “defect,” which he could not overcome.
But Jesus was concerned about His chosen disciple Peter thinking this difference in outward expressions of love could be a “defect.” For Jesus created Peter’s mind of flesh to be exactly what it was, and ordained his brain to function in this way. And it was partly because of this
“defect” that Jesus specifically chose Peter to be His leading assistant teacher. Since these
“defects” actually resulted in very useful and beneficial attributes of Peter, Jesus ignored his bad estimation of himself. Instead, He told Peter to focus on what he was called and destined to do for God, through the genuine pure love that his elect spirit continuously and steadfastly carried for God. So Jesus told Peter to carry on with his work of teaching and training even the least and most untaught elect of God. Focus only upon his good gifts, “Feed My lambs!”
Yet Peter still did not understand what Jesus was actually saying. So Jesus asked Peter a second time if he loved Him, and solely focussed on Peter, but none of the other disciples.
Now Peter knew in his heart, in the mind of his spirit, that he was thoroughly committed to Jesus, and to all the beautiful truths taught by Him. And this actually originated from his genuine love for Jesus in his spirit. Yet Peter questioned his love in his spirit, because he was still focusing on his failures caused by his mind of flesh, on his inability to feel emotions like the others did, and on his impulsive actions, like cowardly denying that he knew Jesus when he was afraid. So, by asking Peter this question again, Jesus wanted Peter to realize that the love for God in his spirit had very little to do with his inadequate social interactions through his flesh, and some culturally condemned or acceptable reactions were irrelevant to either the guilt or innocence of the spirit. Yes, an ability to spontaneously feel and express love in one’s spirit through the flesh is a gift of God, and emotions help one maintain a stable pattern of norms in life. However, emotions can also inhibit or negatively influence the development of love and understanding in the spirit, especially in developing a right relationship with God.
God chose to give some of His elect the gift of a neurotypical brain of flesh, with its greater stability in life. But God also gave some of His other elect the gift of a sometimes impulsive but also hyper-focusing brain of flesh, so they can do different kinds of works for Him and for His creations. Some may call this different gifts of God “defective,” because they are “not normal,” but not being normal is actually not a “defect,” just different, and true defects are all spiritual, not physical. Since Peter, whom Jesus appointed to bear the kind of work which took responsibility for guiding, counselling and teaching the awakened elect in His New Covenant church, required a different kind of gift, this was no reason for Peter to be afraid and ashamed of that different kind of gift. Rather, like all gifts of God, Peter’s gift simply needed to be focussed on doing what he did best, while his weaknesses had to be either helped, accommodated or avoided altogether. Thus, Jesus told Peter to focus on his appointed works, and “Do all that is needed to care for My sheep” (Ποίμαινε τὰ πρόβατά μου). Still, Peter responded in the same way, not comprehending what Jesus was actually saying to him.
After this, Jesus questioned Peter’s use of the word “cherish” (φιλέω) too, since Jesus knew Peter was hiding behind that word, trying to disguise his social inadequacies. At the same time, Jesus kept him focused on his love and works for God. That is, Jesus asked him, “Are Page 1893
you cherishing Me?” Jesus wanted to get to the root of the problem. He had already taught Peter, “That which is making life is the spirit. The flesh certainly does not profit anything.
The words which I uttered to you, in a way that is now producing good effects and results, are [from] a Spirit and are [making] life” (John 6:63, ALT). So now Jesus wanted Peter to recognize this reality, to understand that loving actions through the flesh may involve the emotions and the impulses produced in the mind of flesh, but the love causing loving words and deeds actually originates from the love in the spirit. And the physical words and deeds need to be clearly distinguished from the actual love in the spirit, from a spirit’s love for God or for anyone else. For love in the spirit has nothing to do with what the flesh thinks or does.
But Peter still did not understand what Jesus was trying to teach him. And, when Jesus began to question even the “cherishing” emotions of his flesh, Peter grieved, since he thought Jesus was now questioning if he even possessed any emotions for Him. But Jesus clearly was not talking about the emotions that came from the flesh, nor anything else expressed by the flesh.
So Jesus immediately responded by telling Peter to focus upon his appointed and predestined works of teaching His people all that was taught to his spirit by God. Jesus commanded Peter to “feed My sheep,” to teach the awakened elect in the church. With this third exhortation, Jesus essentially gave Peter his own personal Great Commission, his calling and purpose for his entire life. Nevertheless, Peter remained too depressed and confused to fully and truly understand all this at this time. However, some weeks later, when the day of the Pentecost ended, Peter finally did understand. Once Peter’s spirit was fully awakened by the presence of God’s Holy Spirit, he began to clearly see how the “defects” in his mind of flesh mattered little or nothing, as long as his spirit walked according to his love for God and trust in the truths God’s Spirit taught to his spirit. Then Peter’s focus radically changed. Then he began to focus solely upon applying his spiritual gifts and callings, not his failure to be like others.
As a last word, Jesus pointed out to Peter how he had acted upon his impulses throughout his life, up to that present time: “Most assuredly I reason with you, while you had been a young man, you were putting on the belt yourself and were walking about wherever you were willing to go.” Until then, impulsive Peter could not help but follow any of his overwhelming desires in his mind of flesh. But none of that proved to hold any value for the freedom and life of Peter’s eternal spirit. Thus, Jesus sobered the thoughts in Peter’s soul, and prophesied about the way his spirit would depart from his flesh: “Yet, when you might grow old, you will stretch out your hands and another will put the belt on you, then carry you where you are not willing to go.” As John pointed out in his Gospel, which was penned long after Peter had been martyred, here Jesus was “signifying [by] what kind of death [Peter] will glorify God.”
Then, yet again, Jesus told Peter to focus more upon his God-given strengths, and less upon the weaknesses of his flesh. And He did this by exhorting him: “Follow Me as My disciple!”
13. It was also in Galilee that Jesus also gave His Great Commission to all eleven of the disciples He had chosen to serve as His teaching assistants. And Matthew, an eyewitness, recorded this Great Commission for us. This was when Jesus assigned a teaching mission for life to the eleven, to the disciples whom He had been training for three years, to the men whom we call the apostles. And Jesus had chosen those eleven as His assistant teachers because they were all thoroughly educated in biblical teachings from birth, and because all possessed a strong aptitude for teaching in their hearts. Now, some say another version of the Great Commission is found in Luke’s Gospel (Luke 24:44-49). But Luke said that Jesus spoke those words on Sunday night, on the first night after His resurrection, which was the night that Thomas was Page 1894
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missing from the gathering of all the disciples. And, yes, on that first night, Jesus likely did say approximately what Luke paraphrased in his Gospel. But that teaching of Jesus, which Luke recorded in more detail than in the other Gospels, was for literally all believers and is not nearly the same as the Great Commission, not even a real commission or mission at all.
Since we know Thomas was not there that night, Luke was not actually providing a different version of the Great Commission, but merely recording what Jesus taught to all His disciples on that first evening. In contrast, the actual Great Commission was clearly a life-long mission which He gave only to the eleven whom He chose, as well as to all teaching elders whom He would choose in the future. It was only for the able men He trained to help Him teach. And it would be Jesus who would become the only Head of all their equal elect brothers and sisters, of all whom He personally chose to gather into His New Covenant branch of God’s church of Israel. None of the eleven could become an authoritative teacher or head of a church. Then it would also be Jesus who would appoint each of the other disciples to serve Him and their siblings in the unique way that each was destined and called to perform. Only Jesus could ever and would ever be able to save anyone. None of those eleven could ever begin to do so.
These eleven were appointed for one particular mission in His church. And Jesus gave the eleven this Great Commission only after they had been taught the Scriptures by their parents and community, after they began to show a great interest in God’s Word, after He further taught and trained them for a full three years, after He had corrected or rebuked all the false teachings they had received from parents and rabbis, after all had been fully convinced that He rose from the dead, and after they all journeyed into Galilee to meet Him in a private place apart from all the other disciples. For Jesus specifically told those eleven men to go to Galilee, so He could speak with them privately, so He could complete His teachings for them and tell them their mission, in an environment where they felt at home, secure and safe from the Jewish and Roman authorities. Of course, after the Passover week in Jerusalem, many disciples likely returned with the eleven to Galilee. But, after all the other disciples came to Galilee, Jesus asked the eleven to come by themselves, and meet Him at a private location.
“So the eleven disciples had travelled into Galilee, up to the mountain where Jesus arranged for them [to meet]. And, after seeing Him, they fell prostrate. Yet these differed in opinion.
Then, after approaching, Jesus reasoned with them, saying: ‘All decision-making authority was given to Me, in heaven and upon the earth. Therefore, after having departed, teach so that [souls from] all the nations become [My] disciples, immersing them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to guard all, as much as I gave you [disciples] charge of. And look, I Myself am with you [disciples] all [your] days, until the entire completion of the age’” (Mat. 28:16-20, ALT). This is the real Great Commission.
In this Great Commission, Jesus only addressed “the eleven disciples,” only those whom He arranged to meet at a certain place on a particular mountain. And here we clearly see that the mission our God Jesus assigned to His eleven core disciples involved going to people in all the nations on earth, in order to teach them a very specific array of doctrines. This narrowly defined mission, given to His carefully chosen and called eleven assistant teachers, involved this: “teaching them to guard all, as much as I gave you charge of.” So their assigned role in His New Covenant branch of Israel was to remain disciples, that is, to keep on performing their role as the “faculty assistants” (assistant teachers) of their God and Teacher, Jesus. For
none were to become rabbis. None were to ever teach their own interpretations of Scriptures.
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Jesus wanted the eleven to teach the other elect “to continuously guard” (as indicated by the durative present infinitive form of τηρέω in verse 20). In His ecclesiastical language, Jesus wanted His eleven to teach the spirits of the other elect how to guard His own teachings, and His own teachings only. Jesus sent the eleven out to teach other elect hearts and souls to cherish, protect, preserve and prevent the corruption of His own body of teachings. These were the teachings He had chosen to give those eleven throughout the three years of His ministry, as well as the other teachings He would choose to grant their spirits from His own Holy Spirit, whom He would soon send to them. And, since Jesus specified that He was calling the eleven to teach only what He taught to them, Jesus was calling them to remain His disciples, to continue in the role of His assistant teachers. So Jesus was actually forbidding the eleven to become rabbis, since all rabbis possessed the authority to teach their own interpretations of the Scriptures. For one cannot be commissioned to serve as disciples of Jesus for life, until the end of the world, then also serve as a rabbi who might correct Jesus.
Actually, Jesus never called Himself a Rabbi either. Throughout His entire ministry, Jesus only called Himself a Teacher of life and faith. So Jesus Himself did not claim to invent any private interpretations of Scriptures, but only ever taught the Father’s interpretations of the words He caused the prophets to write. And Jesus Himself declared that literally all He taught was what the heavenly Father and Creator told Him to teach. Therefore, Jesus saw Himself as a disciple of the heavenly Father. Furthermore, Jesus recently had commanded all of His disciples, including all the eleven: “But you [disciples] never be called ‘rabbi,’ for one is your Teacher of life and faith, so all you disciples are brothers” (Mat. 23:8, from: ὑμεῖς δὲ μὴ
κληθῆτε· Ῥαββί, εἷς γάρ ἐστιν ὑμῶν ὁ διδάσκαλος, πάντες δὲ ὑμεῖς ἀδελφοί ἐστε, SBLGNT).
So, when Jesus spoke to the crowds of His disciples in Matthew 23:8, the passive aorist subjunctive with the negative, in the phrase μὴ κληθῆτε, indicated a firm prohibition. Thus, Jesus was forbidding all His disciples, all Christians, including the eleven, from ever even beginning to be called by any title of esteem, like “rabbi,” “teacher,” “pastor,” or “father.”
And the reason He gave for this prohibition was that He would always remain the Teacher of all. For He would rise from the dead and send His Holy Spirit to personally teach each and every elect spirit standing in bodies of flesh within that crowd. For all time, all His disciples would be equal siblings in His family. Since Jesus rose from the dead, in His body of flesh, and lives to teach all of us forever, this clear prohibition commanded by Jesus does not allow any disciple to become a rabbi. No Christian can ever bear any right to teach anything that is one’s own interpretation of the Scriptures, that is, never as any kind of authoritative doctrine.
Therefore, logically, Jesus definitely was not telling those eleven to make others into their own disciples, to become rabbis or shepherds (pastors) with decision-making authority over the doctrines taught to their own disciples. Rather, Jesus was commanding His assistant teachers to “teach so that [souls from] all the nations become My disciples.” This mission to make disciples for Jesus, and not for themselves, was extremely obvious to those eleven. For Jesus began by saying, “All decision-making authority was given to Me, in heaven and upon the earth.” So, right from the start, this meant that they would not have any decision-making authority (ἐξουσία) themselves. It meant that, now that Jesus had permanently risen form the dead, they all would remain under His decision-making authority as His disciples, and never become decision-making authorities themselves. After all, there was absolutely no decision-making authority left for them, once the Creator God gave Jesus literally all of the decision-making authority on earth and in heaven. Besides, Jesus and the Father are one God. So now Page 1896
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the risen God-man would remain alive forever, to serve as each individual disciple’s only personal authoritative head Teacher and Lord, regarding all matters of life and faith. Now Jesus would be there to personally teach and train each disciple all the days of each one’s life.
This Great Commission would include all of His future disciples whom He chose to raise up as His teaching assistants, as teaching and judging elders under His command, until the earth ended, “until the entire completion of the age.” So the mission given to the eleven was to remain as His serving and faithful faculty assistants, and simply teach “as much as Jesus gave them charge of,” that is, only the concepts Jesus and His Holy Spirit taught them and called them to teach. Then, throughout the entire New Testament, we saw how these eleven, and all the future elders and apostles appointed by Jesus in His true church, actually fulfilled this Great Commission. For not one of those men ever allowed anyone to address him with any esteeming title like “rabbi.” All insisted that everyone address them with either their given names or with the title “brother.” And no apostle nor elder ever called anyone his disciple.
Thus, the Great Commission was Jesus’ command for the eleven to carry on doing exactly what they had been doing for Him before He died on the cross, to serve as His assistant teachers. For He permanently rose from the dead, so they remained His disciples throughout their lives. They were to continue as His assistants, doing the same tasks He appointed for them before His crucifixion. And, since they had not only been teaching in His name during His previous ministry, but were also baptizing in His name, they were to continue to do this as well. However, after He sent them His Holy Spirit, which is also the same Spirit who is in the Father, they were to now be “immersing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Now, in the power and authority of all three Persons of God, the eleven would hear the confessions of sinners and counsel them, with teachings and rebukes, before sending those souls to the mikveh. Previously, the eleven were teaching the people how to honestly repent into the truths Jesus taught, before those souls went out to pray and bow under the water, which was the biblical Jewish ritual we call “baptism.” This act of dipping the entire body under water was a symbol of dying and burying the past life of sin, so the sinner could rise into a new life of just and loving righteousness, in God’s name, that is, by the enabling power of God and by His authority to forgive all sins. So each sinner had to be questioned by a wise and devout brother or sister before doing this, lest one might offend God by committing to a new life of errors and sins, instead of to a new life of truth and God-defined righteousness; or lest one vainly seek a new life through the wrong motives, instead of through love for God and His creations, so that God’s power would endorse and enable it.
14. Sometime after giving the Great Commission to the eleven, Jesus told His disciple to return to Jerusalem, since God’s Law required one to go to the temple for the Feast of Weeks (called the Pentecost), if one was able to do so. And they arrived in Jerusalem about a week early.
Then, on the fortieth day of Jesus walking upon the earth in His resurrected body of flesh, about 42 days after His crucifixion, Jesus came to them once again. That is when Jesus ascended into the sky in the presence of many witnesses, in front of all His disciples who had gathered together in Jerusalem. This occurred “after giving a charge to the apostles whom He chose through the Holy Spirit” (Acts 1:2, ALT), which was the way Jesus referred to what we call the Great Commission. So Jesus had to ascend to heaven before the Pentecost occurred.
Jesus ascension to His throne in heaven occurred in this way: “And being gathered together, He declared to them, ‘Resolve to not depart from Jerusalem, but rather wait for the promise Page 1897
of the Father, which you disciples heard from Me. For, on the one hand, John immersed with water, but on the other hand, you disciples will be immersed in the Holy Spirit, not with [the passing of many of these days [from now].’ Therefore, those having gathered together had been asking Him, saying, ‘Lord, might You be restoring the Kingdom of Israel at this time?’
So He said to them, ‘It is not for you people to know the season or the appointed time which the Father set by His own decision-making authority. Rather, you people will receive power after the arrival of the Holy Spirit upon you, and you will be My witnesses in both Jerusalem and in all Judea, even Samaria and up to the end of the earth.’ And after saying these things, while they were looking, He was raised up and a cloud took Him away from their eyes. Then, as they were staring intently into the sky, at Him travelling away, two men in white robes also had stood with them and had remained there. These then said, ‘Men of Galilee, why did you stand looking looking into the sky [with the effect of not being able to see anything]? This one, Jesus, the One having been received up from you men into the sky, in this way, will come, in the same way you observed Him travelling into the sky.’” (Acts. 1:4-11, ALT). And even now, there is no reason to look to the sky for Jesus. He is in us and all around us today.
15. Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to all the believing and serving disciples in the New Covenant branch of Israel on the 50th day after His resurrection. His Spirit was sent to us on the 16th of Nissan, seven weeks after the Day of Firstfruits during the Passover week. Jesus rose on the day the Jews made a wave offering of the first sheaf of the barley harvest, together with other offerings at the temple. Then, on the 50th day after this, on the first day of the Feast of Weeks, also known as the Shavuot or Pentecost (i.e., on the 6th of Sivan, which would have been late on that year, in AD 28, and occurred about July 5th by our Gregorian calendar), the New Covenant branch of His church received His Holy Spirit. Luke also suggested that the people who received God’s Holy Spirit were the same who saw Him ascend into heaven a week earlier. And Luke named some of them: “Then they returned back into Jerusalem from the hill being called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, having a journey of a Sabbath [away from it] [i.e., a Sabbath day’s journey is 2,000 cubits, 1.2 k. or 0.75 mi. and, by mentioning a Sabbath journey, he implied that Jesus ascended on the last Sabbath day before the Pentecost, and also suggests that they resided at a place very close to the Mount of Olives]. And, when entering [their meeting place], they ascended into the upper room, where they were residing. This included Peter and John and James, then Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James [the son] of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot, as well as Judas [the son] of James. These all were being consistently diligent, with one mind for prayer, [and they prayed] together with [their] wives and Mary, the mother of Jesus, also together with His brothers” (Acts 1:12-14). So the disciples who had gathered in the house included the eleven, their wives, the mother of Jesus, the brothers of Jesus and an undisclosed number of others. Later, but before receiving the Holy Spirit on the Pentecost, all these disciples elected Matthias to be an assistant teacher, that is, one of their teaching and judging elders, to serve together with the eleven Jesus chose (vv. 15-26).
These male and female disciples of Jesus all received God’s Holy Spirit in order to establish His New Covenant branch of His eternal church of Israel, in a way which would finally and fully complete God’s principal promise to Abraham. And they received the Spirit of the one God into their hearts and lives in this way: “Now, on the day of the Pentecost being fulfilled, all were together at the place. Then, unexpectedly out of the sky, came a sound just like a mighty pushing [aggressive] wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Also, dividing tongues like fire were perceived by them and settled down upon each one of them.
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So all had been filled from the Holy Spirit and they began to utter other languages, just as the Spirit was giving [to each one]” (Acts 2:1-4, ALT). So the Holy Spirit came aggressively and eagerly pushing upon the elect spirits of His disciples, urging them to build up God’s just and loving kingdom on the earth, and to utterly nullify the ruthless and unjust works of Satan in the world order. Then, after this, these true disciples of Jesus found the courage to leave their hiding place and walk boldly out onto the streets, calling to all the people in the languages which God’s Holy Spirit had granted to them, in foreign languages which they could now speak in and comprehend as spontaneously as the native speakers from those foreign lands.
Thus, His disciples went out fluently proclaiming “the greatness of God” (τὰ μεγαλεῖα τοῦ
θεοῦ) in many languages (Acts 2:11). And two things were very clear here: (1) their lucidity and intent to proclaim truths and doctrines regarding God (which included their Messiah and God, Jesus) to all devout Jewish people and Gentile converts who had gathered for the feast, and who had come from all over the known world, indicated that they were completely in control of all their mental faculties, and were not in some kind of ecstatic emotional state; (2) these foreign languages also indicated that God was granting His New Covenant salvation to the elect in every nation upon the earth. For the only reason God created Israel through His priest named Abraham, was so that the entire world could have a nation of priests to serve them, a priesthood of men and women dedicated to revealing God’s will to all upon the earth, and pleading to God for His justice and providence on behalf of all individuals on the planet.
The resurrection of Jesus followed the completion of Satan’s ultimate religion against God, which that devil shaped through four demonic empires. Rome had now completed the devil’s image of a human god, in full. By the time our Messiah Jesus came, that fourth kingdom was feverishly busy impressing its artificially glorified likeness of a man onto the minds of all its non-elect siblings. And, with the power of terrorism, using swords and instruments of torture, they suppressed all forms of true and godly wisdom, so they might force even the elect to worship human gods. Now the world would begin to do as Rome did, to emulate: (1) its Babylonian head of gold, which esteemed self as much as gold; (2) its Persian breast and arms, which praised its own destructive works as much as pure silver; (3) its Greek belly and thighs, which admired the beauty of its own thoughts as much as a polished brass phallic symbol; and (4) its Roman legs of iron, with its feet consisting of pieces of iron and clay, which marched wherever it willed, stomping out resistance to its own will. Now even the elect bowed before human gods, with coerced esteem and service, as blinded, chained, abused slaves serving in its filthy factories and mines until they died ignoble deaths. Furthermore, that devil cunningly established fake churches to proclaim his anti-God religion of humanism to the elect. And Satan’s preachers successfully took captive both the elect of Israel and the entire world, causing them all to worship human gods. But now those four kingdoms, as they continued to do all this to this day, would meet resistance. For a small, still voice rose within the true priesthood of Israel on that day of the Pentecost, in the year Jesus died for the sins of His elect, after He rose from the dead to personally counsel each one’s spirit, a voice that could never be silenced by Satan’s world order.
This world has suffered indescribable tortures, and now balances on the brink of a painful death, all due to the absolute arrogant ignorance of humanistic human gods, who have always been exploiting the duped masses for their own private power and pleasures, while ruthlessly silencing truth with manipulative and slanderous lies. Their spirits knew that every plant and animal on earth has a spirit of life, and that all those spirits are able to love, thus, able to feel loss, in the same way humans do.
For all life was created by the Spirit of the Creator for this purpose. Yet humanism destroyed this life as though it was inanimate, as though all that life were a mineral they could mould into a flattering Page 1899
image of themselves, or crush into a smooth road for them to march upon in their demonic pursuit of self-indulgence. Then they did even worse to human souls, terrorizing and murdering their own siblings in humankind, robbing homes of children to serve as their slaves, killing and being killed in their senseless wars fought solely through vanity and greed, merely to make their most psychopathic human gods feel more god-like. But Jesus has been slowly eroding the power of Roman humanism throughout the interceding centuries, tempering all their selfish, loveless, evil and demonic impulses.
After the unholy spirit of Satan established his prime religion of humanism in his spiritual kingdom of the world order, the Creator God also provided this temporary earth with “a stone” that was cut out without human hands, with a growing and indestructible rock made by His hands alone. And this Rock of Ages has been constantly striking against that devil’s kingdom and crushing its worshipped gods of humanism, damaging its mobility with blows “on its feet that were of iron and clay” (Dan.
2:34, WEB). So, in our day, that factious foot of Satan’s religion is almost crippled beyond healing.
For the stone, cut by the hands of our Creator, has grown, and has become almost “a great mountain, and filled the whole earth” (Dan. 2:35, WEB). When God came to us in a body of human flesh, He
“set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, nor shall its sovereignty be left to another people; but it shall break in pieces and consume all [Satan’s] kingdoms, and [God’s kingdom] shall stand forever” (Dan. 2:44, WEB). So two kingdoms still exist on earth, and only two, where each wars against and separates itself from the other. God has been dichotomizing the world, dividing the elect from the non-elect, separating those with spirits born in His image from those with spirits born in Satan’s image. And now this division is almost completed, as more elect enter His kingdom each day, even as He abandons Satan’s children to their father’s foolish, deluded, cruel, unjust and self-destructive kingdom, without any help to save them. Now God is casting Satan’s children deeper into the delusions of their hellish father, as He is freeing His elect from their exploitative slavery.
However, mark my words: This most definitely is not a war between what are called Judeo-Christian churches and Satan’s world order, since almost all Judeo-Christian churches today belong to Satan’s world order, and are ruled by the psychopathic offspring ordained by the devil. The same holds true for all other religions, since humanism has absorbed them all, and made all into sects of humanism.
Because the devil’s kingdom is being held together by his demonic religion of humanism, which consists of an almost infinite variety of shifting and ever-changing delusions and lies, it has always been factious, from its very start. However, all those delusions and lies were designed to lead away from God’s truths in the same way, through the worship of human beings instead of God Himself.
Thus, humanism has gathered all his false religions into one kingdom. Within his world order, every subject kingdom has always been greedily attempting to exploit, oppress or destroy the other, and each of his ordained rulers tries to stab one another in the back, all for their lord’s entertainment. Yet it remains one kingdom. So all fake humanistic religions, including atheistic secular humanism, will always esteem and worship human beings and will always remain united in this one religious and highly self-destructive delusion. Theistic humanists are one with atheistic secular humanists, one with ruthless capitalists, fascists, communists and so on. In reality, there is not a hair of difference between church and secular servants of the devil. However, some human beings are very different.
The elect of God, with few awake, will soon be awakened. Now most remain scattered among the religious and secular institutions of Satan’s world order, still either enslaved by or warring against that devil’s fourth religious kingdom of Roman humanism. Yet all those elect have spirits created in God’s image, with hearts longing for real truth, so they can build love upon it. And our God Jesus, who is one with our Father and Creator, will never bless the humanistic churches serving Satan and His world order. Rather, Jesus works to separate elect human spirits unto Himself alone. From the Page 1900
Mat. 28:1-20, Our Teacher Lives
moment of birth into a body of flesh, each eternal elect spirit is set apart for Jesus. This may be an unseen sanctification, and this world might often force elect flesh to serve institutions of the devil’s world order. Yet know this, the spirits of all elect have always and will always belong to God alone.
From the very beginning, the Holy Spirit of the Designer and Creator of all material and spiritual existence has been personally communicating with His elect children and all that lives on earth. And now that Jesus paid the full price of sin demanded by the great accuser, the relationship between the elect and God has been forever restored. Therefore, the very Spirit of the Creator God, the Spirit of life in our God Jesus, can and will dwell in the hearts of His elect children on earth, throughout time.
Since Jesus died to pay the devil’s demanded ransom for our sins, then rose from the dead to serve as the personal Teacher of each and every elect soul who ever lived or ever will live, and ascended into heaven in order to send His Holy Spirit to teach, train, counsel, guide and awaken the mind of each elect spirit, much progress has been made on earth. Yes, all the world has also seen much resistance to that progress, by Satan and his children. But that psychopathic resistance to God will soon end, for Jesus will return in the darkest of times. And those darkest of times seem to be rapidly overtaking the absurdly arrogant human gods on earth now, even while the brightest hopes for God’s kind of true justice and love rise upon the horizons of all His children’s hearts. Satan’s end draw nearer each day.
Jesus’ Spirit will continuously remind His elect about the concepts of genuine wisdom, justice and God-like love, all that He and His prophets taught in His Word, and all that He also wrote upon all His material and spiritual creations. The elect are being granted God’s own intended meanings of His words, because His Holy Spirit has not ceased from whispering those truths into the ears of all elect spirits, not for one moment since the day He redeemed them from their sins on His cross. Jesus has restored our broken relationships with our Father, then rose from the dead to become each one’s personal Teacher. Although God, who is a Spirit, taught and trained His elect children about Him and His ways since the beginning, His works before the day of the Pentecost cannot compare to what the Spirit of Jesus can now do in the hearts of His elect siblings in His family of humankind. For, now He has freed us from all our past and future sins by His bodily death, and earned the right to dwell in each of our hearts, in a way that the accuser cannot condemn Him for the aiding and abetting of our sins. For, by His resurrection, He has guaranteed the full completion of His justifying works which shall perfect our elect spirits. Once the elect realize this, as they are now realizing it, they shall see the power of our holy God do His works in them and through them. They shall build up God’s just and loving kingdom on this earth, and will surely nullify the devil’s works. God’s just, free, loving kingdom will grow upon the earth, through His power to restore all, and Satan’s kingdom will fall.
Page 1901
Scripture Index
(Refers to numbered pages. In some PDF viewers, add 11 to these page numbers.)
Acts 1:2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..............1897
Acts 1:3. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..............1889
Acts. 1:4-11. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............1898
Acts 1:12-14. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .........1898
Acts 1:15-26. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .........1898
Acts 1:15-26. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .........1898
Acts 2:1-4. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .......1899
Acts 2:11. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ....................1899
Acts 2:42-47. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .........452
Acts 2:42-47. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .........719
Acts 3:12,16. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .................703
Acts 4:12. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..............59
Acts 4:12. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ................1542
Acts 5:1-5. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .......1417
Acts 7:51. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..............880
Acts 7:51. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..............887
Acts 11:1-18. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .............707
Acts 12:1-2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .........1300
Acts 13:48. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ....................1144
Amos 5:2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..........1659
Col. 4:14. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...657
Dan. 2:29-45. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............................145
Dan. 2:34. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......1900
Dan. 2:34-35,44-45. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ........................1089
Dan. 2:34-35,44-45. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ........................804
Dan. 2:35. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......1900
Dan. 2:41. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......867
Dan. 2:44. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......145
Dan. 2:44. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......1900
Dan. 4:30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......1479
Dan. 7:3-28. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..........................145
Dan. 7:13-14. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............................849
Dan. 7:23,25-27. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..1606
Dan. 7:25. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......1632
Page 1902
Dan. 7:26. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......1633
Dan. 8:17. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......849
Dan. 8:21-25. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............................828
Dan. 8:23-26. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............................145
Dan 9:16. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .......1549
Dan. 9:24. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......1604
Dan. 9:25. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......1604
Dan. 9:25-26. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............................849
Dan. 9:25,26. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .......95
Dan. 9:27. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......1605
Dan. 10:3. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......634
Dan. 10:12. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......446
Dan. 11:20-31. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .....1633
Dan. 11:37. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............1633
Dan. 11:45. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............1605
Dan. 12:1-3. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............................1436
Dan. 12:1-4. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............................1575
Dan. 12:4. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......1096
Dan. 12:4. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..........1137
Dan. 12:11. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............1633
Dan. 12:11-12. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .....1605
Deut. 1:8,15. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......1036
Deut. 1:15-17. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .........................1208
Deut. 1:17. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .....1077
Deut. 1:42. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...157
Deut. 4:2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...858
Deut. 4:10. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...242
Deut. 5:12. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...848
Deut. 5:12-14. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .........................308
Deut. 5:14. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...848
Deut. 5:14. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...860
Deut. 5:16. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .....1058
Deut. 6:4-6,14-18. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...................207
Deut. 6:5. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...1445
Deut. 6:5-6. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .......................1443
Deut. 6:5,6,17. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .......215
Deut. 6:6-9. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .......................852
Deut. 6:7. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...124
Page 1903
Deut. 6:7. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...298
Deut. 6:10-13. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .........................185
Deut. 6:13. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...367
Deut. 6:16. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...186
Deut. 6:24. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...330
Deut. 7:15. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .....1417
Deut. 8:2-3. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .......................197
Deut. 8:3. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...184
Deut. 8:3. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...1021
Deut. 10:8-9. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .......................722
Deut. 10:9. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...308
Deut. 10:12. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .....849
Deut. 10:14. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .....595
Deut. 10:20; 16:13. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ....225
Deut. 13:1-3. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .......................601
Deut. 13:1-4. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .........................1076
Deut. 13:1-18. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .........................908
Deut. 13:1-4,5,13-16a. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1616
Deut. 13:3. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...246
Deut. 13:3. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .....1066
Deut. 14:27-29. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .........................723
Deut. 15:1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...95
Deut. 15:1-11. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 378
Deut. 15:1-11. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 418
Deut. 15:7-11. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..1059
Deut. 15:8. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...416
Deut. 15:11. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .........378
Deut. 16:6. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .....1726
Deut. 17:2-5a. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ....1619
Deut. 17:8-11. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 725
Deut. 17:8-12. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .........................122
Deut. 17:8-13. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .........................155
Deut. 17:9-11. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
Deut. 17:11. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .........1076
Deut. 17:14-20. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .........................155
Deut. 17:14-20. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...........................1358
Deut. 17:15. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...44
Deut. 17:15. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .....316
Page 1904
Deut. 17:15. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .....1039
Deut. 17:15. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .....1805
Deut. 17:15a. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .............1804
Deut. 17:16. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .....1805
Deut. 17:17. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .....1805
Deut. 17:18-20. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .........................724
Deut. 17:18-20. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...........................1805
Deut. 18:13. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .....166
Deut. 18:13. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .........1133
Deut. 18:15. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .........117
Deut. 18:15. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .....165
Deut. 18:16-18. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .........................166
Deut. 18:18. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .....1034
Deut. 18:18-19. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..1130
Deut. 18:18-19. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...........................1612
Deut. 19:15. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .........1129
Deut. 19:15. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .........1197
Deut. 19:15-21. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..1183
Deut. 19:16-19. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .........................227
Deut. 19:18-20. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .........................482
Deut. 19:18b-19. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...........................854
Deut. 19:19. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .....1621
Deut. 19:20-21. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .........................373
Deut. 20:5. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .....1541
Deut. 20:10-12. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .........................157
Deut. 21:6-9. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .........................1055
Deut. 21:10-14. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...........................1234
Deut. 21:18-21. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...........................1265
Deut. 21:20. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .....918
Deut. 21:21. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .....1621
Deut. 21:22-23. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...........................1723
Deut. 22:1-4. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .......................860
Deut. 23:24-25. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .........................844
Deut. 23:24-25. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...........................1348
Deut. 23:7. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...383
Deut. 24:1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...356
Deut. 24:1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .....1236
Deut. 24:1-4. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .........................1232
Page 1905
Deut. 24:2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .....1238
Deut. 24:4. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .....1238
Deut. 24:5. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .....1728
Deut. 24:7. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .....1621
Deut. 24:16. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .....1453
Deut. 25:5. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .....1433
Deut. 25:6-10. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .........................734
Deut. 27:9. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .......115
Deut 27:18. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ....858
Deut. 29:4. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...372
Deut. 29:10-13. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .........................372
Deut. 30:6. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...335
Deut. 30:6. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...422
Deut. 30:6. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...423
Deut. 30:6. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .....1086
Deut. 30:6. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .........1130
Deut. 30:9b,10. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ........1086
Deut. 30:10. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .....1256
Deut. 32:35. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .....379
Deut. 33:7. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .......114
Deut. 33:10. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .....121
Deut. 33:10. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .....242
Deut. 33:23. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .........114
Deut. 34:5-6. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1125
Eph. 1:3. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............1656
Eph. 2:1-3. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...219
Eph. 2:1-3. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...956
Eph. 2:2-3. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .....1803
Eph. 2:8; 6:23. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...............1144
Eph. 4:11. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......................1156
Eph. 4:12-16. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .....326