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November 30, 2003, ©
Homer Kizer Commentary – From the Margins Text & Texture I have told the story before -- of being drafted to reread biblical
prophecies. I knew then that I would have to write about a subject I had
studiously avoided: religion. Indeed, I have written a reasonable amount since
that day on the second Thursday of January 2002, about 12 minutes after 10 CST.
And I have stumbled over what I previously believed, placing in print what I
had been taught by physically minded teachers of good intentions. Most of what
I have written has been about eschatology. I have written very little about
Christian living, about applying the Bible as a moral instruction book, about
day to day application of the laws of God. I started to write a correspondence
course, the first lesson being about how to study the Bible. Immediately I
found that the concept of precept-upon-precept exegesis that I had been taught
for thirty years was how the drunk prophets of Israel taught Scripture, that
Isaiah under inspiration condemned the practice of such a reading strategy. I
have not yet returned to the idea of writing a correspondence course, for I
found that the story of the Bible was in its texture. Yes, the text is
important. But the text has been picked clean by generations of
precept-upon-precept scholars, most combining that reading strategy with
historical exegesis. A turkey carcass four days after Thanksgiving has more
meat on it than does the Greek signifiers that comprise the Gospels (not that
meat hasn’t been missed here and there). Higher criticism has made turkey soup
from the text throughout the late 18th, 19th and 20th
Centuries, the recipe not one that I wish to share. It makes Christ gag. And
for all of the gleaning, the entirety of the "story" of the Bible has
been missed, or badly misunderstood. The key to understanding the Bible and to understanding biblical
prophecies is that in all things, the physical precedes the spiritual, and the
visible reveals the invisible. A person doesn’t need to know the identity of
the descendants of the ancient house of Israel. A person doesn’t need to know
the nuances of koine Greek phrases – readers assign meaning to words, so unless
a person is of the same mindset as the writer, the person will not assign the
same meaning to a linguistic icon even if both use the same language. A person
doesn’t need to know what scholars have written about a word, a passage, a
Gospel. A person needs only to understand that the visible, physical sequences
of events reveal what the reader cannot see, hear, touch, or taste. And
understanding some of what humans cannot directly observe or input is
absolutely necessary for the mental development of the sons of God; hence, the
Bible exists both as revealing document, and as a witness against spiritual
juvenile delinquents. Human beings are physical creatures restricted to living within the
fluid called space-time. We cannot physically cross out of the four dimensions
in which we live. Yet the promise of the Bible is life outside of our four
dimensions. And to receive this promise of life – and before receiving changed
bodies that can cross dimensions -- human beings are mentally modified through
receipt of the Holy Spirit, or the Breath of God. Only those individuals, once
mentally modified, who will be ruled by the supreme sovereign of the
supra-dimensional realm usually identified as heaven will actually receive a
body that can cross dimensions. So the modification of a person’s mind is made
to determine whether the person will be ruled by this ultimate sovereign. And
in order for this test to be valid, the person must be subjected to the
Adversary’s attitude of rebellion for a determinant period of time. A simple plan? You bet. But in the past, both recent and distant, so
much has been written by so many about the Bible that what can be said has
been, a statement that is not true, a statement that only seems true. The text
itself says that the text conceals meaning – and the text reveals how that
meaning has been concealed. For the text is a mirror that reflects events in
that supra-dimensional realm. The Apostles, including James and Paul, who were taught directly by
Christ Jesus understood the concept of literary texture, even if they
didn’t have a word or phrase for the concept. John writes in terms of light and
darkness. James describes the perfect law as a mirror. Paul says that what
happened to Israel in the wilderness was an example for the Church. In each
case, their meaning was not in the exactness of their word usage, but in the
texture of their context. My wife attended Ambassador College, Big Sandy campus, for a short
while. In a student body assembly, Garner Ted Armstrong questioned the study of
literature, asking how could anyone, after the author’s death, know what the
author meant whenever he or she wrote a particular passage. He went on to mock
literature as an intellectual discipline. The teachers of spiritual Israel who promulgate the study of the Bible
by examining precept upon precept and line upon line are carnally minded. They
cluster together like house finches around a winter bird feeder. Flocks of them
fly off to exotic vacation spots to keep the Feast of Tabernacles each fall.
They distribute tapes and magazines, sponsor a few small market television and
radio broadcasts, and believe that a famine of the Word has or is about to
occur. They have turned the preaching of the good news of the soon-coming
kingdom of God into a cottage industry, and have then restricted entrance into
their guild to a double handful of apprentices each year. They actually do more
harm to the greater Church than they do good. But they are sincere. Jesus said that He spoke in parables so that those who heard Him speak
would, indeed, hear Him ‘"utter what has been hidden since the foundation
of the world’" (Matt 13:35) and not understand what He said (vv.
11-13). Is not a parable a literary construct closely allied to other forms of
fiction? Is a parable to be understood literally? No -- and yes. At the time of the end, when knowledge had increased, the prophecies of
Daniel were to be unsealed – and they have been. They were sealed with their
shadow. Their unsealing required an awareness of literary texture. I started college as a math/physics major. After a year, I transferred
to Oregon Tech, where I entered the Gunsmithing program. English had been my
poorest subject in high school. I had two years of college, but only one
semester of Intro to Lit and one quarter of Freshman Composition behind me when
I dropped out at eighteen years of age. I didn’t return for twenty-three years.
And when I returned, I entered graduate school in University of Alaska
Fairbanks’ Creative Writing program. My first degree is my M.F.A. in Creative
Writing. I am actually supposed to know a little bit about what I do. The Bible is not a book intended to be understood by everyone. If a
person regards it as the instruction book for humanity, or as a moral
guidebook, the person misses most of its meaning. Certainly, it is a moral
guidebook and an instruction manual revealing how to live, but these are rather
minor aspects of why it exists. When an individual receives the Holy Spirit,
three things – and a fourth -- occur to the individual. The individual knows
God. No one has to teach the individual about God, or convince the individual
that God exists, or construct elaborate arguments for why the Bible is the Word
of God. Shocking? Why? Because someone argued you into believing that
the Bible was the Word of God? You knew it was the Word of God before any proof
was ever offered. So the universal first two lessons of every correspondence
study course – the lessons devoted to proving that God exists and that the
Bible is the Word of God – are superfluous. Hermann Melville in Moby-Dick raised the question of how can a
person trust a received text, a question he continued to explore throughout the
remainder of his literary career. The answer is the one he found: whatever a
text gives, the text can take away. Faith is required to trust any received
text. If a person believes that the Book of Mormon is another testament
of Jesus Christ, then it is for that person another testament of Jesus Christ.
Young L.D.S. missionaries don’t try to argue a person into belief. Rather, they
give a prospective convert a book, ask the prospective convert to read the book
and then to pray about it, and then see if the person doesn’t believe. Many do.
Many do not. But the essence of their technique is valid: a person accepts or
rejects a received text for reasons apart from logic. The natural or carnal mind is actually hostile to God (Rom 8:7), so
until a person has been drawn from the world by God, the person doesn’t know
God, doesn’t want to know God, isn’t interested in having a relationship with
God, and certainly doesn’t accept the Bible as the Word of God. And I am
certain you know someone like this. Talking religion to this person is a waste
of time, and usually harms your relationship with the person, who won’t spend
eternity in hell even if you would like the person to go there as the person’s
next vacation destination. The second thing that occurs to a person when he or she receives the
Holy Spirit is that the individual has the laws of God written on his or her
heart and mind. The individual knows what is right, and knows to choose to do
what is right. The false teachers of Israel will now have to teach this
individual to erase those laws that have been inscribed on tablets of flesh.
These false teachers will tell this spiritual infant that to attempt to keep
the commandments of God is legalism. They will say that the commandments cannot
be kept, that the person is not under the Law but under Grace. Yes, the person
is under Grace, which remains outside the person. The laws of God are now
inside the person – and a conflict has been established between the law that is
in the convert’s mind and the law that rules the convert’s physical appetites. The first lesson of most Bible correspondence courses focuses on proving
that God exists; the second lesson focuses on proving the Bible is the Word of
God; and the third lesson focuses on proving that the commandments of God are
still binding. The individual who has enough interest in the subject to take
such a course has already received the Holy Spirit. And if this individual has received
the Holy Spirit, this individual already knows God and has the laws of God
written on his or her heart and mind (Jer 31:31-34; Heb 8:8-12). Yes, this
person needs to learn to read the fine print of what has been inscribed on
tablets of flesh. But these first three lessons of our generic correspondence
course really teach the disciple nothing. At best, they confirm what the
disciple already knows, and assures the disciple that he or she isn’t crazy and
hasn’t suddenly become a kook. The Apostle Paul had to write to the formerly
Gentile saints at Colossae to reassure them that they hadn’t suddenly become
kooks now that they had begun to keep Jewish festivals, new moons, and
Sabbaths, all of which are shadows of the reality that is Christ. The seventh day
Sabbath is the weekly spiritual memorial to saints entering Christ’s rest as
the glorified sons of God who were foreknown, predestined, and justified (Rom
8:29-30); Christ rests from the hard work of bearing their sins as the reality
of Israel’s Azazel goat. The Sabbath was the weekly physical memorial to the
Logos resting on the seventh day after doing the hard work of physically
creating the universe (Gen 2:1-3). Two creations. One physical. One spiritual.
One with a memorial to the Logos resting after creating physically. One with a
memorial to Christ Jesus, the last Adam, a life-giving spirit (1 Cor 15:45),
creating spiritually. The Sabbath commandment as part of the laws of God that
have been written on the hearts and minds of drawn disciples bears the same
relationship between spiritual and physical as anger/hate does to murder, and
lustful intent does to adultery. Murder and adultery and Sabbath-breaking are
done with the body, are physical, and are part of a law that has been
abolished. Anger/hate and lustful intentions and Sabbath-breaking are done with
the mind, which should rule over one’s body. They are spiritual transgressions
of the laws of God that have been written on the hearts and minds of
born-from-above disciples. These inner laws must be kept to the best of the
person’s mental ability. They are love. Are you beginning to see the spiritual problem with writing a
physically-oriented correspondence study course? The voiced Ten Commandments
are but audible shadows of the spiritual laws of God inscribed on the hearts
and minds of drawn disciples. With exceptions here and there, all of spiritual Israel has flocked to
one bird feeder or the other. Those who teach legalism are convinced that those
who teach iniquity/lawlessness are doomed, and vice versa. The truth isn’t in
the middle, nor located along the bridge between the poles. Satan rules that
bridge. Rather, the truth is above both divisions of the greater Church. And it
is past time for disciples to think physically. It is past time for those who
would erase the laws of God from the hearts and minds of spiritual infants to
lose all credibility. It is time to look up, acknowledge God and Christ, and to
begin thinking spiritually. That is possible. All a disciple has to do is to
quit being ruled by his or her appetites. The third thing that happens when an individual receives the Holy Spirit
is that the individual has his or her sins forgiven. No future sin will even be
imputed to this individual as long a he or she remains in covenant with the
Father and the Son. And therein is the problem: God keeps covenant with those
who love Him and keep His commandments (Dan 9:4). The second covenant is just
that, a covenant. Both parties to the covenant have obligations. Israel’s
obligation is to love God and keep His commandments. This obligation is
spiritual, mental. And the first four of the Ten Commandments are the shadow of
how disciples are to love God. Paul writes that "the whole law is
fulfilled in one word: ‘You should love your neighbor as yourself’" (Gal
5:14). The spiritual laws of God are to love God and to love your neighbor. A
disciple does neither by erasing the laws that have been written on his or her
heart and mind. All such erasing accomplishes is to cause the disciple to
commit spiritual suicide. Knowing God, internalized laws of God, sins forgiven -- too good to be
true? There is more: the fourth thing that happens is the individual receives a
second birth after the manner of Adam, and receives life in the spiritual
realm. If the individual were to die one instant after receiving the Holy
Spirit, the individual would be resurrected upon Christ’s return when the
judgment of holy Israel is revealed (1 Cor 4:5). This individual would not be
resurrected in the great White Throne Judgment. If the Father felt this
individual needed additional time to mature spiritually for whatever crown or
office for which this person was called, the individual would have received
that additional time. Keeping someone alive is no great task for God. A person
who has life in the spiritual realm will die physically when it is time for
this person to die, not one moment before. This doesn’t mean the individual
won’t experience injury or suffer illness or die prematurely. It means that if
the Father wanted the person alive for whatever reason[s], the person would be
alive. The problem with writing a correspondence study course is the problem of
conveying literary texture…I first encountered this problem in Alaskan Native
stories. Barre Toelken and Tacheeni Scott in their essay "Poetic
Retranslation and the ‘Pretty Languages,’" writing about Navajo Coyote
stories, say, "[T]he structures and styles we find meaningful in lettered
literature are likely to be misleading, or at least irrelevant…the significant
part of Coyote stories resides in their texture, not their structure, and
excessive attention to structure and stated content may actually stand in the
way of our seeing those subtle moral implications and concepts which seem to be
the Navajos’ main reasons for telling the story" (p.81 in Traditional
Literatures of the American Indian. Ed. Karl Kroeber. Lincoln, NE:
University of Nebraska Press, 1981.) The Bible as lettered literature conveys the history of a slave people
leaving Egypt, and becoming a nation that experiences civil war and national
captivity. The story is regional. The claims made in the story are fantastic.
And Melville’s concerns about whether a received text can be trusted are valid
– he wanted to believe, but like Matthew Arnold, he had been educated unto
unbelief. Hawthorne never figured out why Melville didn’t jettison all belief. Am I picking a fight I don’t need to make, stating that the structure
and content of the Bible might actually stand in the way of understanding its
significant parts? Perhaps. But it is a fight I pick knowing that if I don’t,
someone else will. It is a fight whose time has come. And it is, really, a
fight that I seem to have been selected to start. I never wanted to be religious – then after I was placed into the Body
of Christ, I never wanted to have anything to do with ministry. I was perfectly
content on the back side of Kodiak Island, or on Unalaska Island. The farther
away from civilization, the better I liked the location. In fact, the only
place I ever truly felt at home was at Dutch Harbor (I write of this in the
essay collection From the Margins). So I didn’t return to civilization
with an expectation of staying. I returned because I had daughters to educate,
and very little money. I stayed because there wasn’t money to return. Then came
that January morning in 2002. My mindset changed in a moment. I was given a job
from which there is no retirement. And that job wasn’t to deliver a kinder and
gentler message about the Father, or Christ Jesus. It was to prepare a people
to fight against the Cross, and to win. Jesus told Pilate, ""My kingdom is not of this world. If my
kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting’" (John
18:36). His kingdom is spiritual, and it is coming here to earth. And His servants
will fight in the spiritual/mental realm. The war will be waged with ideas. The
territory over which battles will be fought is the mental topography of
humanity. The victors will be all who endure to the end – and the victory has
already been won. Only the battles remain. There
will be casualties; there have already been casualties. Disciples will either
crucify their old natures, or the Cross will murder them spiritually. Calvary
represents in a sketch the entirety of human history. The Cross killed Christ,
but Christ overcame death and the grave. The Cross also killed two lawbreakers,
one of whom demanded that Jesus physically save Himself and the thief. The
other acknowledged the justice of his death, feared God, and asked only that he
be remembered spiritually. He received the promise of everlasting life. Humanity will divide itself between those who think physically and look
for physical salvation, and those who think spiritually and look for spiritual
salvation. The person who would keep his or her life will lose it. The person
who dies for Christ, figuratively and/or literally, will save his or her life.
The two thieves – they are us, all of us. We are one or the other. And it is
this texture that doesn’t easily lend itself to inclusion in a correspondence
study course lesson. It is this texture that I seek to convey through many
words that return to a simple message: disciples must live within the laws of
God, as they know and understand those laws. Anything else is hypocrisy. * * * * * [ Home ] |