I AM THE LORD WHICH SANCTIFIES YOU. 15 MAY 2017

Many people have decided the “old testament” is outdated and toss it aside, little realizing it lays the foundation for what Christ (Yahshua) did. The concept that “I am the Lord which sanctifies you” (A) is a foundational thought that was taught by the priests of Moses’ tabernacle, Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem, and the second temple built on the site of Solomon’s in 515 B.C and remodeled by Herod in 20 B.C. Christ and his disciples said that our bodies are now the Temple of God (B)…and the principle still applies today: it is God who sanctifies us.(C) Interestingly, Pentecost, where the Holy Spirit descended on believers causing the beginning of the church age happened at the Temple. Truly, this demonstrated that the Spirit had left the Holy of Holies and was taking up residence in people of good heart.

We need to bear in mind a spiritual concept that is spelled out in Romans 3:10: “There is no one righteous, not even one! No one understands, no one seeks God, all have turned away and at the same time become useless…” Unless the holy Creator of the Universe wants to be seen, seekers of God labor in vain to discover Him.

In the first book of the Hebrew scriptures is the story of the perfect Garden of Eden. This perfect garden environment shows that originally God had established order. He created a helpmate for Adam, which was a complement to him.

(Some readers may not believe the Genesis account, even so, by continuing to read this post you will understand both an alternative to the New World Order’s Gnosticism, and why many Christians contend their faith in God is the opposite of religion. This is important not only for those seeking answers to the World Order, but also for those who wonder why true faith in Christ is the unique way of salvation, and finally for us to understand why the way of faith which Christ taught is being singled out for destruction and has been widely replaced by “Christian” religion, which is joining itself ecumenically with other religions.)

From the time man left that Garden environment of order, he has been trying to create a New World Order. By the use of religion he has tried to patch up the wild world, and to rearrange, to repair, to reform this polluted disordered world. The condition of the world testifies that religion has failed. But religion was never meant to be the tool to reorder the world. In the Garden of Eden, Jesus Christ was promised to Adam and Eve as God’s own method of reconciling Himself back to mankind. Messiah (in Greek: “Christos”) was the hope of the Hebrew prophets, and the center of their faith in God. The mystery of God, Jesus Christ…more accurately known as Yahshua haMessiach, was sent to man as God’s way of allowing those people searching for their divine Creator to get to know Him. Religion is supposedly a search for God, but in reality the priesthoods are not honestly looking for God to reveal Himself (how often do they speak of a need for an atonement?), but they are looking for techniques they can develop to sell to the masses. Religion continues for various reasons, many of them the selfish lusts of religious leaders.

In reality, these hirelings have misunderstood the Christian message. They reinterpret in the view of their religious message. All religions are seeking God(s) in their own strength, and becoming proud of their findings. We must remind ourselves it is God Himself who sanctifies.

To seek for God is a claimed goal of religion. This seems to be a fine goal. If one wants to search for & study a rock, there is no objection on the part of the rock. If one wants to search for & study a man without his consent, the seeker may run into big trouble. If one searches for God, he finds out that unless God reveals Himself to the searcher, then the finite man cannot find an infinite and Holy God.

Christ (aka as Immanuel –meaning God with us, and Yahshua, which means “God is our salvation” came with the object of showing man how man doesn’t need to seek God by himself, but rather that God is willing to reveal Himself to mankind. Rather than relying on religion, man can allow God to reconcile Himself to mankind. Jesus Christ was not very complimentary to the religious leaders of the day. He called them “ye fools and blind; woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.” (Mt 23:13) He warned people that the religious leaders kept people from God!

During the Babylonian captivity, the Pharisees had picked up the entire Babylonian Gnostic religious system. After Jerusalem fell to the Romans, the Jewish religious leaders returned to Babylonia, which became the Jewish religious center until they began moving into Europe in the Middle Ages. The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia states on pages 13 through 17,

“…in the second century C.E.[A.D.] Babylonia had become a bulwark of Judaism….The former land of exile had become a land of refuge…The 7th century found the importance of Babylonian Jewry considerably increased. During the preceding 300 years, Palestine had been merely a place of veneration, while Babylonia became the center of Jewish life and learning. Babylonian Jews no longer looked to Palestine for instruction; even the heads of the schools at Tiberius were Babylonian Jews….Babylonia was the spiritual center of Judaism, and its influence brought many Babylonian customs into general use…”

But we should remember that the blindness coming off the Jewish people’s eyes was prophesied as a sign of the end days. (D) When His original selected people can welcome Messiah back, it will be time for him to return. When Yahshua wept over Jerusalem and predicted its destruction, he said, “For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.”(E) In other words, when they could receive him, he would return.

(A) EX 29:44, 31:13; LEV 20:8, 21:8, 15, 22:9, 16; EZK 20:12, 37:28 (B) JN 14:20, 1 JN 3:24, 1 COR 3:16, 6:19; 2 COR 6:16; EPH 2:20-22, 1 PTR 2:5 (C) 1 THS 5:23 & others (D) ROM 11:25-26 cf. ISA 1:26, 11:12; 27:13, 33:20, 40:2, 49:22, 60:10, EZK 20:40, 36:8; ZECH 1:17, 10:6, 14:11; MAL 3:4. (E) MT 23:39 cf. LK 19:41-44