Class 9 – Visions of the Kingdom Age – Jim Dillingham

Class 9 – Visions of the Kingdom Age – Jim Dillingham

This is the 9th class in the Visions of the Kingdom Age Series presented at the Cranston Rhode Island Ecclesia for the adult Sunday School in 2014.
We had been considering the inclusion of leaven, primarily in the 2nd harvest feast in that 1st Kingdom of God, that had been initiated at Sinai. That 2nd harvest feast, The Feast of Weeks, is a divinely appointed shadow of the 2nd divine harvesting in the plan of God… the 2nd immortalization event at the beginning of the Millennial Kingdom. Due to the invariable use of leaven all through scripture to represent a polluting effect, and the absolute absence of leaven from the first harvest feast, shadowing the 1st divine harvest from creation (which was the immortalization of Jesus of Nazareth) the presence of that leaven required to initiate the 2nd harvest feast highlights the principle of grace, that despite the pollution of those participating in that 2nd divine harvesting at the beginning of the Millennial Kingdom, that we still can be acceptable to the ultimate Husbandman, the Creator of the universe.
We had been looking at what might appear, at first glance, to be ‘exceptions’ to this consistent application of a very negative association with leaven that is never, ever assigned to our Messiah. The application we were addressing at the conclusion of the last class was the peace offering, that including leavened bread, but which was never allowed to be offered on the Christ altar. However, it was certainly consumed with the peace offering. We were considering the understanding of peace, a concept that is highly distorted and inverted by the society of the sons of men. They understand peace to be merely an absence, the absence of disturbance and aggression. They inappropriately presume disturbance and aggression to be real and forever and peace to be nothing but the temporary absence of disturbance and aggression. That understanding is an insulting contradiction of our Creator’s righteousness (His right-ness). It is disturbance and aggression that are the temporary absences to the eternal principle of peace. We were considering the understanding of how peace defines the ultimate nature of the plan of God, which is complete harmony… and not merely the absence of disturbance. This is the same sense as darkness is the absence of light and has no existence of its own. Cold has no existence, only being defined by a removal or absence of warmth and heat, which is the absolute basic rule of the science of refrigeration… that one cannot create cold but simply remove heat. Death is nothing more than the removal of life. One cannot have death apart from life, as it has no independent existence. Death is merely an absence, an elimination of life. Peace cannot possibly be nothing but an absence, like the many negative features we can witness in the terms of creation, those terms of creation presenting that 2nd avenue of testimony from our Creator that validates the features of His righteousness. The positive features of our Creator’s eternal truths and principles, His righteousness, His right-ness… are always demonstrated in the real and substantive features of creation like light and warmth and life… not the absences – like darkness and cold and death.
At the conclusion of the last class we were considering how the full range of our Creator’s righteousness, that peace that will be achieved at the conclusion of the Millennial Kingdom after death and sin are eliminated completely. That full range of Yahweh’s righteousness from start to finish is demonstrated in baptism. Jesus himself tells us this, very directly at his own baptism. It is very odd to hear Brethren declare that the foundational purpose for baptism is the forgiveness of our sins, as if everything is all about us. Actually personal forgiveness is a side benefit. Our previous sins are certainly eliminated, but that is because death is the divine answer for sin and baptism is a death and resurrection simulation. Baptism is actually primarily about our Creator’s righteousness, an understanding that is oddly missed in many commentaries about baptism. We noted in our last class how Jesus responded to the humble objection of his cousin when he came to be baptized at the Jordan River. Jesus answered John: Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. This is from Matthew 3. Jesus declares that baptism is a demonstration of the fulfillment of all righteousness. Jesus certainly didn’t need forgiveness for any sins. Yet his baptism was required and immediately after that baptism he was filled with the Holy Spirit without measure. Now this is the exact same pattern for all three… that highly appropriate three – Holy Spirit outpourings from heaven in the transition generation between the 1st Kingdom Age and the Ecclesial Age. The 120 Jewish disciples at Pentecost were baptized in the Holy Spirit and fire. The Gentiles at the home of Cornelius were officially invited to accept the gospel when the Holy Spirit fell on them and they were then baptized. That baptism association with the Holy Spirit power outpouring directly from heaven was the invariable pattern, initiated at Christ’s baptism.
So the question we should address would be how does baptism fulfill all righteousness? How does this shadow the principle of peace, in which leaven was inserted into that divinely designed ritual of the peace offering?
Well, there are two stages in baptism. The first is a voluntary burial in a watery grave, where we cannot breathe. The 2nd stage is to return from that watery grave and we breathe again. This is not just death and resurrection, according to Jesus these two stages declare the full range of his Father’s righteousness. The voluntary burial in water declares that Yahweh was right to require death for sin as the righteous judgment in the garden of Eden. The return from that watery grave to breathe again is the promise of renewed life on the basis of grace, despite the righteousness of Yahweh’s death judgment in Eden. Resurrection and eternal life on the basis of grace is not a contradiction of the heavenly Father’s right judgment of death for sin. Grace and judgement are not contradictions. They blend perfectly in the Creator of the universe. Both are right. Both judgement and grace are eternally right. The right judgment of death for sin at the beginning and the right extension of grace at the end constitute the full range of our Creator’s righteousness from beginning to end, from alpha to omega. His baptism is what Jesus defines as fulfilling all righteousness, as it is demonstrated in our own baptisms. The forgiveness of sins at baptism is a byproduct of the baptism ritual, not the main event. This isn’t all about us! Everything is about our Creator, our heavenly Father. If we make the mistake of suggesting the forgiveness of sins is the primary focus of baptism, we diminish God and exalt ourselves, exactly the pattern of all false understandings.
This is why leaven was included in the peace offering and why two leavened loaves were waved to heaven to start the Feast of Weeks… on the basis of the principle of grace. There are absolutely no exceptions to the rule that leaven identifies a polluted state. Leaven is never once directly associated with our savior, our Messiah… therefore – as previously stated – it is rather strange to see how the enlightened community today has surrendered to the convenience of using leavened bread to remember the death and resurrection of our completely unleavened Messiah, when our Messiah was never polluted with transgressional sin and his salvation was not dependent on grace.
Our initial suggestion was that the pronounced absence of leaven in the first Feast Week as opposed to the promoted presence of leaven to initiate the 2nd feast week demonstrated the absence and presence of that consistent polluting leaven shadow in both forms of testimony… the written word of God in the Bible and the spoken word of God in the scientific observations of creation. I believe we have demonstrated the consistency of this ‘why’ answer. Jesus, the only one harvested in that first divine harvest almost 2,000 years ago, was immortalized on the basis of a complete absence of leaven in his life, the activation and exercising of the sin producing, self-worshipping frame of reference issuing from the human heart… that diabolos within. Despite suffering with the same cursed sin nature as we do, Jesus never exercised that serpent philosophy. He was never polluted or leavened, unlike ourselves. But our harvesting, our immortalization has another component that was unnecessary for our Messiah’s immortalization. That is grace. Despite the divinely unacceptable polluting presence of leaven in our lives we can still qualify for divine harvesting, serving as the first fruits of both Yahweh and Jesus Christ and not necessarily be condemned to the fate of the tares to be burned after being separated from the wheat. This is why leaven is required for the introduction of the 2nd harvest feast week but forbidden for the first.
Let’s just offer a creational validation to this invariable association between leaven and the pollution that is generated by those who do not flawlessly demonstrate the righteousness of Yahweh in their entire life (as Jesus did). As we have noted on a number of occasions, the features of creation offer a 2nd witness, a validating testimony to Bible truths. The features of creation resulted from the spoken words of the Creator, commanded into existence or into position. Therefore the spoken word of the Creator – creation – will have to agree perfectly with the written word of God – the Bible. When we have things absolutely right… when we understand the righteousness of the Creator, that corroborating testimony between the Bible and the terms of creation becomes very clear. This is the case with leaven.
We breathe in good air to live. This was the ‘heavenly’ component in the two component definition of the creation of Adam… a body formed of the dust of the earth into which the breath of life, that heavenly component, was breathed into the earthen body of Adam by the Creator. Jesus defines the air we breathe as a symbol of the promise of immortalization. When Nicodemus couldn’t understand how we can be born again in order to inherit the Kingdom Jesus explained that this born again process is becoming like air. Jesus says: Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. This is the process of immortalization, being born again into a new nature, a spirit nature, defined in the terms of wind and air.
Cursed mortal life during this dispensation breathes in good air. We breathe out poison. We breathe out carbon dioxide. Just to further validate the divine significance of this creational testimony… We know that a ‘tree’ was the symbol of immortal life in the Garden of Eden… the tree of life. Well in our current cursed environment it is the tree that is the divinely appointed provider of the air we need to breathe. Trees absorb carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, cleansing the atmosphere of the poison we naturally generate from our sin cursed nature, that carbon dioxide. Through the process of photosynthesis, trees manufacture oxygen from water through the power of the sun. The elimination of carbon dioxide and the generation of oxygen through the leaves of the trees, powered by sunlight… is perfect shadow of divine truths. The trees of life do the exact opposite of the cursed caretaker of creation, mankind…. that breathes in oxygen and breathes out carbon dioxide, just as we can breathe in the living truths and principles of our Creator but still breathe out or demonstrate contradictions of those eternal truths and principles. The trees of life reverse that process. This is why our Messiah is so frequently identified as a branch and as the root and offspring of Jesse and David. So how is this creational and scriptural relationship demonstrated in the lesson of ‘leaven’? It is because the act of leavening actually produces that exact same carbon dioxide, just like the unclean outbreathings of human beings. When the bacteria in the yeast feeds on the flour and water in that warm environment, the byproduct is carbon dioxide… expanding the loaf of dough… rising due to the generation of this carbon dioxide, with the bubbles being trapped in the dough and then cooked to produce that more spongy, soft texture in the breads and cakes and pastries into which that yeast was deposited.
This invariable distancing of anything leavened from our Messiah in any shadow application throughout scripture does highlight the question concerning the common indulgence of using leavened bread in the memorial service to represent the body of our Messiah. It is rather odd to hear the most common excuse used to defend this obvious change in the divine pattern, as it is certainly impossible to presume leavened bread was used by Jesus in the Passover meal where his Father always absolutely forbid that substitution. That common excuse is expressed as – well, if God had wanted us to use unleavened bread then He would have used the particular Greek word for unleavened bread in reference to the memorial service instead of a generic word for bread that can mean either leavened or unleavened. That is an absolutely impossible supposition as the presumption of a required simplicity completely violates the foundational divine education policy of intentional complexity. Our heavenly Father never, ever makes things so clear that there is no possibility for a misconception. He always, and very intentionally accommodates a shallow perspective in every form of communication. This is His filter that operates between the enlightened community and the unenlightened community and also most definitely within the enlightened community… separating out those within the enlightened community with a circumcised heart from the enlightened without a circumcised heart…. exactly what Jesus did during his ministry.
The Creator of heaven and earth never makes anything perfectly unmistakable in any of His expressions. Why do we think it is that the huge majority of self-proclaimed Bible believers get everything wrong? Why is it that the enlightened community always has corrupting influences within the Ecclesia, distorting divine communications? Why is it God angrily told Aaron and Miriam that their brother was the only man He could speak to without using dreams, visions and dark sayings, but that he communicated with that intentional complexity with every single other man in the enlightened community. One is always required, 100% of the time, to search diligently for the perfect consistent pattern to understand exactly what Yahweh means in His expressions. Nothing is supposed to be easy, despite what this quite foolish presumption supposes… that if God had wanted us to use unleavened bread to remember the death of His son that He would have used the specific word instead of a generic word for bread. That presumption contradicts the entire educational communication pattern of the Creator of the universe. Perhaps we should remember that Nadab and Abihu were divinely executed for slightly modifying a divinely constructed ritual. They were incinerated by fire from heaven for offering strange fire, that was not commanded, during the priesthood ordination procedure. While it is somewhat comforting to recognize we are still within the period of prophesied divine silence, when God communicates indirectly through a providential avenue, perhaps we should be a little more circumspect when we consider changing divinely designed rituals that always project features concerning the eternal righteousness of our Creator. If we are going to present a reason for changing a divinely presented ritual pattern, we had better have an exceptional reason and not such a shallow excuse as presuming God would have made it very simple for us if He actually cared if we changed the memorial service ritual Jesus began with unleavened bread.
As a side note to our theme of Visions of the Kingdom Age, if you might like to consider this subject of unleavened bread more extensively, you may want to review a PDF file on the subject of unleavened found at spiritsword.net website under the menu heading titled “Challenging Issues”.
So, Jesus died on Passover day, on a Wednesday afternoon, just before the beginning of the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which began at sunset, which was a High Sabbath on that Thursday. Passover is all about the divine reconciliation achieved through the death of our Messiah, the antitypical Passover Lamb. Reconciliation is not the same as salvation. We have noted in previous classes that foundational explanation the Apostle Paul presents to the Romans in chap 5 and vs 10: For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. Reconciliation is presented in the past tense and achieved on the basis of the death of Jesus. Salvation is defined in the future tense and extended to us on the basis of our Messiah’s resurrection, his life… indicating his eternal life, true life,… not the sin cursed life of mortality with which we currently suffer. Reconciliation and salvation are 2 different stages in the divine plan. One is about the righteousness of our Creator’s judgments and the other is about the righteousness of His grace, which is legitimate despite the righteousness of His judgments. Grace and judgment are not contradictions, as our natural minds often presume. They blend perfectly in our Creator, just like that dual lesson in baptism. Passover was all about reconciliation through death. The Feast of Unleavened Bread was about salvation on the basis of resurrection to eternal life, which is why this was exactly when our Messiah was immortalized. We noted how the firstfruits associated with the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which would be barley, were waved as unprocessed grain toward heaven, the sheaf of firstfruits. This was not done on the first day of the Feast but on the day after that High Sabbath.
Lev 23:10-11 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye be come into the land which I give unto you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest unto the priest: And he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, to be accepted for you: on the morrow after the sabbath the priest shall wave it.
We noted this pattern to also apply to the heaven-ward presenting of Jesus Christ following his firstfruits harvesting, that he was presented to his Father the day after the Sabbath… just like the firstfruits of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. That appears to be when Jesus talks with Mary Magdalene at evening, at the very beginning – therefore the dawning- of that 1st day of the week just after sunset. Jesus says (in John 20): Touch me not for I am not yet ascended unto my Father, but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God. Just as the ritual required this waving heavenward of the unprocessed firstfruits grain after the Sabbath, so Jesus was presented – or as expressed in John “ascended” to his Father – after that sabbath was past. This is an exact match between that first harvest celebration and the first divine harvesting from creation.
However, the waving of the firstfruits of the wheat harvest heavenward, that 2nd harvest feast in which we hope to participate, this waving takes place on that first day of the Feast of Firstfruits, that Feast of Weeks, that 50th day since the waving of the firstfruits on the 2nd day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. It was not the 2nd day of the feast of Weeks – not the day after the High Sabbath- as was done with Christ, but the first day of this 2nd feast we see the processed firstfruits, with leaven being presented to the Creator by being waved heavenward on that High Sabbath of the first day of the Feast of Weeks. This too is highly appropriate in the context of our typical and antitypical considerations, that direct connection between shadow and substance. Our own prospective participation in that 2nd immortalization event being projected by the Feast of Firstfruits will not be ‘after’ the Sabbath (like Jesus), but on the Sabbath itself… on that 7th divine day, at the beginning of the Millennial Kingdom… the Sabbath Kingdom that continues for the full day… the full 1000 years that constitutes that 7th divine day… that ‘Sabbath’ day.
The two immortalizations at both the beginning and end of this same 1,000 year Sabbath day are also projected in the description of the timing of Christ’s transfiguration on the Mount, which is yet another projection of the 3 immortalizations in the divine plan (just like the 3 feast weeks)… as there are 3 separate records of this transfiguration… this extreme glorification of our Messiah in front of his 5 living and dead witnesses. This makes for a highly appropriate total of six men that join our Creator in the air and in the cloud on that transfiguration mount in those 3 accounts in Matthew Mark and Luke, which is exactly the terms Paul uses to comfort the Thessalonian Brothers and Sisters bereaving their dead. Paul describes our hope of being caught up in the cloud and the air where we will be with our Lord forever (1 Thess. 4:17). Although there are six men on that transfiguration mount, they are easily and logically separated into a highly appropriate 3 divisions… our Messiah, the living and the dead. The timing of the transfiguration is always assigned in reference to the promise that Jesus made about a week earlier: There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom. That promise immediately precedes each of the three transfiguration accounts in Matthew 17, Mark 9 and Luke 9. The timing from the promise to the vision of the fulfillment of the promise in Matt and Mark is described as being “after” six days, while the timing identification in Luke is expressed as being “about 8 days”. That is another manifestation of that 6-8-3 pattern (3 transfiguration accounts highlighting both after 6 and about 8 days from promise to fulfillment) that we have so frequently seen in these considerations, such as how the 6 Greek letters in the name of Jesus mathematically translate into three eights and how the golden ark of the covenant was formed by joining six surfaces together at 8 corners, etc. Both separate timing descriptions in these transfiguration accounts are perfectly accurate and in perfect agreement with each other and blend beautifully with the ritual details of the 3 harvest feasts. Let’s consider how “after 6” and “about 8” define the exact same day and time and then consider why the Bible insists on expressing this both ways.
If something takes place after six days (as expressed by Matthew & Mark)… then it could be the 7th, 8th, 9th or even the millionth day, although we would presume (and correctly in this case) that this ‘after six distinction would indicate sometime on that 7th day, which immediately follows the 6th day. However, Luke particularly defines this transfiguration (this promised vision of the Kingdom) as happening ‘about’ the 8th day. Taking these two timing descriptions from the preceding promise from which they are all dated… this is an exact parallel to the two immortalizations that the faithful living and dead will experience on that 7th divine day, that 7th millennium, that Sabbath Millennium of 1,000 years. The first immortalization of that Millennial Kingdom will take place immediately after that 6th day, on the 7th day…. while the 2nd will be at the end – about the 8th day. Therefore unlike Christ who was presented to his Father, or waved heavenward like the firstfruits of the Feast of Unleavened bread, on the day after the Sabbath. This is just as it happened literally. The immortalized saints are presented to the eternal husbandman, like the wheat first fruits of the Feast of Weeks, on the Sabbath… which is why those wheat first fruits had to be waved on the 1st day of the Feast, on that High Sabbath and not after the Sabbath like the previous feast. When we realize these three harvest feasts are foundationally all-about projecting the 3 divine harvests, the 3 immortalization events in our Creator’s plan, those ‘why’ answers start to materialize and come into focus. We start to see the light of God’s glory hidden in the intentional darkness of these divine expressions.
Now, we noted that Jesus was immortalized during the Feast of Unleavened Bread. He is the only person to be divinely harvested from creation at this point. So perhaps identifying the 2nd Feast week with the 2nd immortalization event in the divine plan may require a degree of conjecture, as it hasn’t happened yet. So we might ask how safe is our presumption, especially when so many in our brotherhood try to inappropriately paste the Feast of Tabernacles into that 2nd immortalization event at the beginning of the Millennial Kingdom?
Actually we can very powerfully demonstrate the width, depth and breadth of this identification of the Feast of Weeks with that anticipated 2nd immortalization event in the divine plan… with extreme precision.
Let’s go over the timeline of our Messiah’s resurrection during that first Feast of Unleavened Bread to that 2nd Feast Week immediately following his death and resurrection, referencing the provided calendar.
Jesus rose from the dead at the end of the 3rd day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. He instructed his disciples before his death to meet him in Galilee but then to return to Jerusalem and wait. We know from John 21 that Jesus met 7 of his disciples on the beach of the Sea of Galilee where he made them a fish and bread breakfast. However after this he also appeared to them in Jerusalem and commanded them to stay in Jerusalem and wait. They were at Jerusalem for the death and resurrection of Jesus. They went home to Galilee after that, also as instructed by Jesus, but returned again to Jerusalem before Christ’s ascension to heaven where he promised to prepare those heavenly mansions, those tabernacles made without hands, that heavenly citizenship constituting the reward of the saints that he will bring with him when he returns. Luke testifies to this return to Jerusalem by the Apostles in Acts 1:3-5
To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God: 4 And, being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me. 5 For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.
So we have to ask… why the ‘wait’ and why ‘Jerusalem’? We know that promise of the Holy Spirit power was awarded to them on Pentecost, which is the Feast of Weeks and this was at Jerusalem, where all three feasts had to be observed by divine command.
Acts 2:1-3 And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. 2 And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. 3 And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.
So why the wait? Why was Jesus visiting them for specifically a 40 day period after his resurrection, within those 50 days from the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the Feast of Weeks? He left them after those 40 days without returning and then told them to sit and wait – at Jerusalem – until the promise of the Father was given to them… for another 9 days after his ascension to heaven. Why? Obviously that timing of the promise of the Father was significant, because they had to be at Jerusalem. This would expose them to some degree of danger from the Jewish (enlightened community) authorities that would be highly resistant to any claim of a resurrection from the dead by that Jesus of Nazareth and they had to wait another 9 days for that day of Yahweh’s choosing, which was Pentecost, the first day of the feast of Weeks, that 1st Sabbath of the feast week, as well as a Saturday Sabbath on that particular year and that 66th day of the year…. so why? And why do we see this 40 and 50 day timeframe being noted in relation to Pentecost, the Feast of Weeks, that 2nd harvest feast week?
When we understand that each of the 3 harvest feast weeks were intended to divinely project the 3 divine harvests of creation, the 3 immortalization events in the divine plan, then we can see that the second harvest feast week (the Feast of Weeks, Pentecost) projects that second immortalization in our Creator’s plan, in which we personally hope to participate. This is the eternal harvesting (immortalization) of the saints, the firstfruits of both God and Christ… at the beginning of Millennial Kingdom. This foundational relationship is the key to answering these ‘why’ questions, as this will explain why Jesus appeared only and exactly for a divinely appointed period of 40 days within those divinely appointed 50 days from The Feast of Unleavened Bread to the Feast of Weeks, and ‘why’ the disciples had to wait until the Feast of Weeks, or Pentecost in order to receive the Holy Spirit and why they had to wait at Jerusalem and why they had to wait, at all.
Before we answer those questions, let’s legitimize our presumption that the Feast of Weeks does serve as a shadow ritual of that 2nd immortalization event, so that we can be confident when we answer those why questions. We should remember that it was the harvest of the wheat that triggered the Feast of Weeks:
Ex 34:22-23 And thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year’s end. 23 Thrice in the year shall all your men children appear before the Lord GOD, the God of Israel.
This wheat harvest is exactly the harvest Jesus uses as foundation for his parable to define that 2nd divine harvest in his Father’s plan, the very resurrection scheduled for the beginning of the Millennial Kingdom that we are now awaiting so anxiously.
Matt 13: 24-30, 34-43 Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field: 25 But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. 26 But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. 27 So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares? 28 He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? 29 But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.
All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables; and without a parable spake he not unto them: 35 That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world. 36 Then Jesus sent the multitude away, and went into the house: and his disciples came unto him, saying, Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field. 37 He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man; 38 The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; 39 The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. 40 As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world. 41 The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; 42 And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. 43 Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.
This is obviously a parable of the 2nd immortalization event at the beginning of the Millennial Kingdom. Jesus describes this as taking place at the end of the world, although that Greek word translated world is not the same Greek word translated world in reference to what the field represents. The end of the world is actually the end of the aion, meaning the end of the Age. The “world” shadowed by the field is the Greek word kosmos, which can refer to our planet, and even a defined social framework… like a world within a world. We use the expression in English, with phrases like the Wide World of Sports or the “world” of business. These expressions do not signify our entire planet or the entire society of mankind but an individual world within the world, a bordered societal section of the entire whole. This is the application of the use of kosmos in Christ’s parallel. Those tares represent the worldly members of the enlightened community and those who qualify for a required exposure to our Creator’s vindication at the judgment. As previously noted, this understanding is obvious as those tares sown among the wheat are gathered and disposed of before that valuable wheat is stored in the barn. Those called to judgment by the angels only to be rejected will be sent away or disposed of prior to the immortalization of the few among those called to judgment who will be approved by Christ. It would be absolutely impossible to consider those tares are representing anyone outside the enlightened community, as they won’ t be judged at that point. Only the enlightened will be judged before the faithul are stored in Christ’s barn (immortalized). Those tares amont the wheat are definitely being judged as they are burned even before that fruitful wheat is stored in the barn. We aren’t going to examine this Kingdom parable in depth at this time. It would take quite a long time, because there is so much here. The point we want to make is that Jesus defines the resurrection to judgment and this resurrection to immortality as the harvesting of the wheat crop. This is exactly the particular first fruits harvest identified with the 2nd harvest feast week in the laws of the Kingdom of God, the Feast of Weeks (Pentecost). Please note that in this parable it is the son of man, a title of our Messiah, that is represented as the husbandman, which is the farmer, the sower of that wheat seed. We should remember how we answered the question as to how both of the first two feast weeks could be identified as firstfruits but not the third feast week. That 2nd harvest feast, with one of its titles being the Feast of Firstfruits, projects how the immortalized saints at the beginning of the Millennial Kingdom are identified as the firstfruits of both Yahweh and Jesus Christ, from Revelation 14, while the first immortalization of only Jesus is strictly the firstfruits of the Creator Himself. This is why Jesus identifies himself as the sower of the wheat seed in this wheat ad tares parable of the Kingdom. The immortalized saints at the beginning of the Kingdom will be his ‘wheat’ firstfruits as well as his Fathers, just like the Feast of Weeks 50 days after the Feast of Unleavened Bread. This is just one reason why we can be very very confident in our understanding that the Feast of Weeks, the celebration of the firstfruits of the wheat harvest does actually shadow that 2nd immortalization event in which we want to participate in the near future.
In our next class we will consider a complimentary validating pattern in this relationship between the Feast of Weeks and the 2nd immortalization event in the divine plan, on the basis of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the 120 faithful in Jerusalem at Pentecost.
Bro Jim Dillingham
bible888@aol.com
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