9. Let My People Go
© 2018 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
I continue in the grip of the overwhelming certainty that entered into me as I completed the paraphrase/translation of the second part of Hebrews and as I have considered what was confirmed to me in the distinctions of meaning.
When I am building an argument towards the main point I hope to drive home, and when I arrive overwhelmingly at that main point, having laid out brilliantly the arrow that drives to the bullseye, I then continue writing out from that main point in all of my forward thinking. Yet look at all Calvinist translation of Hebrews 10. You see, the arrow and its point are “no consciousness of sins.” The bullseye is entering all that is God possessing already hearts sprinkled clean from all evil consciousness.
All Chopped Up. Yet that massive point, the point of the entire letter, cannot enter the minds of the translators because the definitions of God and of man given by the serpent RULE. And so, even in the New King James, the remainder of chapter 10 as well as the incredible Chapter 12, disconnect immediately from the profundity of the sixth most important verse in the Bible, taking God’s people back into always being dirty in their minds out from struggling with sin. Yet the writer of Hebrews neither meant nor said any such thing. And because the entire book of Hebrews is always chopped up into little pieces, “no consciousnesses of sins” is lost entirely inside the falsely translated and agonizing “struggle against” sin.
Conscious Deceit. What struck me so deeply was the massive levels of conscious deceit practiced by Bible translators, the “guardians of the word,” in their effort to force Nicene theology upon the Bible.
You see, to paraphrase Augustine’s opening argument in On Christian Doctrine, we could say it this way. So you want to read the Bible? Great. BUT – don’t read anything just yet. You see, if you just run with all the foolish things you read in the Bible, you will be a heretic. Therefore, first get into your head the power of all Nicene thinking. Then, when you go into the Bible, you will know exactly how to deal with all the “false” stuff God actually says.
Yet Augustine is not the deeper rule, the definitions of the serpent are.
Listen to the Teachers. The truth is, this argument is thrust against anyone who would express an interest in knowing what God might mean by what He actually says. In fact, I received this injunction in an email just recently (and have been instructed in this way many times over the years). (I paraphrase the meaning of the email.) “Your ideas are so false. You don’t know what the Bible says. You need to place yourself under one of the many good “teachers of the Bible” so that you will know how to read it.”
Yet we are speaking, here, of Hebrews 10:19-22, entering boldly and freely into all that is God, with no thought of any sinfulness, and no consideration of our human flesh as anything but CLEAN and fully acceptable to God.
The Beating of Whips. And we see all the gifted and strong and wise Bible teachers from the passing of John until now, standing there in front of the wide-open Veil instructing God’s precious people that they are not allowed to live inside of Jesus BECAUSE they are dirty, beating them with whips of falseness. Get away from that tree – turn instead to the great and wise tree of your own “struggle against sin.”
And something inside of me goes coldly angry. When He had made a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple, …and poured out the changers’ money and overturned the tables. And He said… “Do not make My Father’s house a house of merchandise!” – Zeal for Your house has eaten Me up (John 2:15-17 – condensed).
The Arrow. Merchandise – trade, trading the righteousness of Christ by which we freely enter for the righteousness of self by which everyone is kept falling short.
You see, the arrow driving into the main point as it was crafted by the author of Hebrews is sharp and clear. First, in 10:4 – For the worshippers, having been cleansed, would have had no more consciousness of sins. But these sacrifices are bringing sins into mind… Then in verse 12-14 – This One, moreover, having offered one unbroken [bearing of all sin] sacrifice for sins, sat down in the right hand of God… For by one offering, He has perfected those who are continuously being made holy [by God].
Ain’t Enough. And so, every Bible teacher I have ever known, reading Hebrews 10:19-22, blank entirely out as they read those words, with no ability for the meaning to penetrate, having been fully merchandised away. The sacrifice of Jesus ain’t enough for us, you yourself must sacrifice yourself upon ‘the cross,’ you yourself must struggle against sin. And thus they turn Hebrews 10:19-22 into one tiny thought. Oh, when you sin, you can approach God and ask Him to forgive you. But you’ve got to do that every time, or it doesn’t count.
But there is also another side to my anger. And that is the removal of the meaning of the phrase, “Let us draw near.”
Inside of God. The word for “draw near” can also be translated “approach.” But it is not the translation, but rather, the sense. All Bible teachers will have us “draw near” to the cross, that is, to come close to the veil. Even in my own mind, it was not until I did this present translating that it dawned on me that the writer of Hebrews was thinking entirely in terms of someone being INSIDE the Holiest, having boldly stepped through the cross, the wide-open Veil, calling our flesh the very flesh of Jesus.
“Draw near” does not mean “draw near the Holiest.” It means that we approach everything HOLY, everything WONDROUS, every unimaginable reality inside of God with all BOLDNESS.
Bondage in Egypt. Then, I look at God’s precious people across the earth and across the centuries, the Beloved of the Lord Jesus, and I see the wondrous Salvation in which God means for them to live standing against the utter poverty in which they have been driven by false teachers who prefer the serpent’s definitions of God and of man. And I realize that something I once thought to be true is really and actually true. That we ARE in, not a repeat, but a rhyme of God’s people in bondage in Egypt, and a voice, stern and decisive, coming to those wielding the whips of another Jesus and another gospel.
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Let My people go.
Ruling Verses. One more thing before I get to the main point of this short bridge lesson. In completing the redo of The Ten Most Important Verses, while at the same time laying out these ten in the wondrous way the Lord has given us in this present course, I have come to a better understanding of what I mean when I say, “ruling verses.” And I hope to explain that clearer understanding in a later lesson of this course. I momentarily thought that the ruling verse of the Bible for most is Genesis 3:5. But the problem was that Genesis 3:5 is not really the contradiction of Romans 8:28-30.
A Deeper Underlying Rule. Then I realized what was going on. You see, my list of the “ten most important verses” grew slowly over many years, thirty years actually, beginning with “conformed to the image of His Son.” Yet this redo of the booklet has forced me to think through WHY each of these verses finds its place.
Each one of these ten most important verses has come up into me out from an even deeper underlying verse. And when I look through my partially completed list of the ten ruling verses in Christian thinking that oppose the ten in my list, I see that all of those arise out from the deeper underlying verse – Genesis 3:5, we could say, “The one ring to rule them all.”
The Deepest “Verse” of All. So, what is that deeper verse, out from which each of these ten most important has arisen into my heart? In actuality, it took me only a moment to discover it, for it is God’s full and final answer to the false definitions of God and of man spoken by the serpent.
And this is so exciting to me, for this verse is an absolute wonder. – John 14:9. – He who has seen Me has seen the Father. – God and man as they ARE, utterly together as One. – I have always said it this way – we know God first by a Man stumbling under a cross He cannot carry.
Alas, I do not have Jesus’ gift of being able to stride through God’s house, driving out the merchandisers with a whip, and so I will respond out from the same cold anger with the gift God has given to me.
No End of Books. As we are approaching the end of this most wondrous of all the Symmorphy courses, I must confess that Solomon’s promise to us continues to percolate up inside of me – of the writing of books there shall be no end
. I do love to write the wondrous glory of Christ forever.And so two books (besides The Jesus Secret II, where my JSV translation will appear) have come into my view and the clear intensity of writing them. The first of those books will be titled Knowing Jesus As He Is. I really like the way I did Knowing God by Scripture. I intend to write these next two books in the same way – a set size of 12 chapters containing 3 lessons each, all closely the same length.
Knowing Jesus As He Is. Knowing Jesus As He Is will be very special. I intend to follow an absolutely strict rule in writing it. I will address that book to a new believer in Jesus who has never heard of God, the Bible, or Christianity, and thus who has ZERO ideas about anything. In that mind, then, I will share Jesus as He is from beginning to end, following basically the first five steps of the Covenant as God always meant the Christian life to be. And never once will I address any “wrong” thinking. I see a book of great power and comfort, written concisely and directly, connecting the reader with Jesus as He is at every step with no thought of anything else.
A Second Book. Only when that book is polished and completed will I then turn to the second book that has also been percolating in me for some time. That second book will be titled Let My People Go. That book will also be limited to 12 chapters of 3 lessons each.
That book will be written as the voice of Elijah, as the second witness of Christ, as the gathering out of the tares, as the confrontation of the Holy One of Israel. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, “Prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God” (Isaiah 40:3).
Yet before we ever arrive there, we will spend precious time with Knowing Jesus As He Is.