A Spiritual Segue: the Non-departure of the New Testament from the Old Testament
Again, I was rereading for the umpteenth time C. H. Dodd's book, The Apostolic Preaching and Its Developments (New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1964) and finally understanding the use of kerygma. "It pleased God by the foolishness of the Preaching to save them that believe." The Greek word translated as "Preaching" is 'kerygma'. The New Testament is structured AS kerygma. "Wow. I wonder if there is an Old Testament equivalent to the New Testament kerygma?" thought I. I even tried to look it up. What a dolt. What a moron. What a horse's petute: the kerygma of the New Testament IS the Old Testament's kerygma--Greek word or not. I don't know what the Hebrew word might be. Oh yeah, this is the Internet: Strong's Hebrew #7150 - קְרִיאָה, qeriah (ker-ee-aw'), noun feminine, "proclamation, preaching."
"It pleased God by the foolishness of the Preaching (the Proclamation, the Message Preached) to save them that believe." Salvation is to join the spiritual track. Salvation is of the Jews. Kerygma is Old Testament, the recapitulation of the Old Testament. From the Jews comes the translation from flesh to spirit. For from them came the conclusion of the Season of Grace. The prophets said something was going to come. A prophet like Moses, a messiah, God (the "Kingdom").
War? A great apocalypse? Actually? Death. Death to this life. (This "life" is actually a spiritual death, our unawareness of being spirit due to the amnesia caused by coming here.) Anyway, in the conclusion of the Season of Grace, Eashoa Msheekha--the Milta incarnated anointing a Jewish guy--died for man, was buried, and rose from "the House of the Dead" AS A LIFE-GIVING SPIRIT. THAT was the war and the great apocalypse. It pleased God to save the Old Testament Jew by his or her believing this stupid and absurd, utterly ridiculous proposition. By believing, the Jew was and is transferred from Darkness to Light, from Death to Life, from Flesh to Spirit. And here as spirit he or she ABIDES: God accounts them as Spirit; not flesh anymore: all things have become new.
I got the term "Season of Grace" from somewhere in Victor Alexander's writings. I had been looking for whatever the Jews called it. I asked rabbis. They had no name for it, for the period between the destructions of the first and second Temples in Jerusalem, which included the seventy weeks of Daniel 9. The Jewish people were very alert to that time. Their forefathers had returned from the captivity at Babylon, which had started the clock, and they took the scriptures "as serious as a heart attack." They kept very good calendars. THAT's why they were like that: "He's coming!" Many had withdrawn to camps in the Jordan Valley to prepare themselves for His appearance--THAT serious! They knew the time. And then the guy died.
The Season of Grace was and IS a capsule of time in the Old Testament. The guy who died recapitulated the whole of it. His death in the capsule was "the end of the universe." He went into the capsule as flesh, but He came out as spirit. The church preaches that, but they don't understand that when we go in as flesh and believe, we come out as spirit, too. We segue from a flesh track to a spirit track. God doesn't just "account" us as spirit, but secretly know in the back of his mind that we are really just flesh -- He takes "as serious as a heart attack" our being spirit. Would to God we did.
Daniel was told the seventy sevens had a purpose: "Seventy seventies (sic) shall rest upon your nation and upon the town that you revere, so as the obligations may be concluded and the sins may be curtailed, so that the abominations shall be abandoned, and that they may usher in the eternal righteousness, such as the vision and the Prophets may be fulfilled, and to the Anointed One we may commit our blessings" (Daniel 9:24 Alexander, notes incorporated). These were concluded, finalized in Eashoa's life in the Season. There was an end to the bad stuff, a finality to the establishment of the good stuff. Joined in His death, burial, and resurrection, those are concluded and finalized in us, too.
THE AGE TO COME HAS COME!! This, the Gospel, is the message preached to Old Testament Jews in New Testament times. Eashoa Msheekha--the Milta--died in the flesh once for all. Because he did die, all died. He was buried, spent the perfect time of three days (our three days) in the grave, rose from the House of the Dead AS SPIRIT, ascended, and was seated as God in Heaven...as all of us...as spirit. The flesh is done. We are included in Him--spirit--the "foolishness" of the kerygma.
It is my opinion that the Season of Grace included and concluded all history. There isn't any more coming. I know that the church is waiting for Eashoa to return, a Season of Vengeance, but I don't think it works that way. I think He did return in the Season of Grace. He returned for the disciples, for Pentecost, for Paul, for many, and for me and you (I hope). The wars, the apocalypse, the trumpets and hosts, Satan and the frogs--that's how MARVELOUS the overcoming by His Spirit we become is. Believe me, we have to "die" of our old flesh-lives to get there! In the process I went through the opposition, the battles, the judgment, and the death--on my knees in my own mini Season of Grace encounter. Eashoa wins without a sword to our flesh.
But it is spirit, not flesh. I don't think He is going back to flesh in the future. The church has missed it. Even C. H. Dodd missed it. The scriptures seem to say Eashoa will return in the flesh, but I don't think that is what they meant. The real vengeance is against OUR flesh-mind, which resists the pursuit of God in spirit. There is war unto the conclusion HERE because of unbelief, but the final state is assured...if we can just find a way to believe it.
"It pleased God by the foolishness of the Preaching (the Proclamation, the Message Preached) to save them that believe." Salvation is to join the spiritual track. Salvation is of the Jews. Kerygma is Old Testament, the recapitulation of the Old Testament. From the Jews comes the translation from flesh to spirit. For from them came the conclusion of the Season of Grace. The prophets said something was going to come. A prophet like Moses, a messiah, God (the "Kingdom").
War? A great apocalypse? Actually? Death. Death to this life. (This "life" is actually a spiritual death, our unawareness of being spirit due to the amnesia caused by coming here.) Anyway, in the conclusion of the Season of Grace, Eashoa Msheekha--the Milta incarnated anointing a Jewish guy--died for man, was buried, and rose from "the House of the Dead" AS A LIFE-GIVING SPIRIT. THAT was the war and the great apocalypse. It pleased God to save the Old Testament Jew by his or her believing this stupid and absurd, utterly ridiculous proposition. By believing, the Jew was and is transferred from Darkness to Light, from Death to Life, from Flesh to Spirit. And here as spirit he or she ABIDES: God accounts them as Spirit; not flesh anymore: all things have become new.
I got the term "Season of Grace" from somewhere in Victor Alexander's writings. I had been looking for whatever the Jews called it. I asked rabbis. They had no name for it, for the period between the destructions of the first and second Temples in Jerusalem, which included the seventy weeks of Daniel 9. The Jewish people were very alert to that time. Their forefathers had returned from the captivity at Babylon, which had started the clock, and they took the scriptures "as serious as a heart attack." They kept very good calendars. THAT's why they were like that: "He's coming!" Many had withdrawn to camps in the Jordan Valley to prepare themselves for His appearance--THAT serious! They knew the time. And then the guy died.
The Season of Grace was and IS a capsule of time in the Old Testament. The guy who died recapitulated the whole of it. His death in the capsule was "the end of the universe." He went into the capsule as flesh, but He came out as spirit. The church preaches that, but they don't understand that when we go in as flesh and believe, we come out as spirit, too. We segue from a flesh track to a spirit track. God doesn't just "account" us as spirit, but secretly know in the back of his mind that we are really just flesh -- He takes "as serious as a heart attack" our being spirit. Would to God we did.
Daniel was told the seventy sevens had a purpose: "Seventy seventies (sic) shall rest upon your nation and upon the town that you revere, so as the obligations may be concluded and the sins may be curtailed, so that the abominations shall be abandoned, and that they may usher in the eternal righteousness, such as the vision and the Prophets may be fulfilled, and to the Anointed One we may commit our blessings" (Daniel 9:24 Alexander, notes incorporated). These were concluded, finalized in Eashoa's life in the Season. There was an end to the bad stuff, a finality to the establishment of the good stuff. Joined in His death, burial, and resurrection, those are concluded and finalized in us, too.
THE AGE TO COME HAS COME!! This, the Gospel, is the message preached to Old Testament Jews in New Testament times. Eashoa Msheekha--the Milta--died in the flesh once for all. Because he did die, all died. He was buried, spent the perfect time of three days (our three days) in the grave, rose from the House of the Dead AS SPIRIT, ascended, and was seated as God in Heaven...as all of us...as spirit. The flesh is done. We are included in Him--spirit--the "foolishness" of the kerygma.
It is my opinion that the Season of Grace included and concluded all history. There isn't any more coming. I know that the church is waiting for Eashoa to return, a Season of Vengeance, but I don't think it works that way. I think He did return in the Season of Grace. He returned for the disciples, for Pentecost, for Paul, for many, and for me and you (I hope). The wars, the apocalypse, the trumpets and hosts, Satan and the frogs--that's how MARVELOUS the overcoming by His Spirit we become is. Believe me, we have to "die" of our old flesh-lives to get there! In the process I went through the opposition, the battles, the judgment, and the death--on my knees in my own mini Season of Grace encounter. Eashoa wins without a sword to our flesh.
But it is spirit, not flesh. I don't think He is going back to flesh in the future. The church has missed it. Even C. H. Dodd missed it. The scriptures seem to say Eashoa will return in the flesh, but I don't think that is what they meant. The real vengeance is against OUR flesh-mind, which resists the pursuit of God in spirit. There is war unto the conclusion HERE because of unbelief, but the final state is assured...if we can just find a way to believe it.
posted by Daniel C. Branham-Steele at
2:03 AM
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