In the last message we has looked at the persuasions of Justin son of Priscus, whom is commonly known as Justin Martyr, a church father of renown to catholics and protestants alike and we shall again look at Justin’s mode of worship as it is considered one of the oldest references to the term ‘sunday’, which is reckoned in our modern vernacular as a synonym of ‘the lords-day’. I have decided to continue the tone of this message into the coming month because of the importance the roots of this mater which is the Impact of Spiritual Religion in opposition to Biblical Faith and the relevance of Reformation upon Christianity to further the Gospel and it’s Projected Kingdom, so I will be covering much of this material yet again in the messages to come, though for understanding we must focus some on it’s core now for seeing the mood of the culture in the time of Justin and other churchmen, which we shall soon get to.

Lord’s day = sun’s day

I had mentioned and put forward for consideration and as a challenge, that the term ‘the Lord’s Day’ has no bearing in Scripture which can conclusively link it to the chronologically relative day we, in our modern context call ‘Sunday’, or in the ancient Greek ‘Helios Hemara’ or Latin ‘Solas Dia’, there is no literal link that exists; this is because the bible from Genesis to Revelation is written from a Biblical and Creation context not a societal context, and though the Roman’s and others may in various time in parallel with biblical happening used the Roman calculation of the year, called a calendar, that is that in speaking with Roman’s or Geeks who know the planetary-god calendar, YHWH’s Holy Spirit does not inspire in His Word by any other standard than it’s own, while God will use our failed sinfull state of understanding or knowledge to reach us, the bible is not written to be applied via social construct, (Just image the argument which would incur if YHWH chose to assert human standards into his Word, so that before we could understand his will we first had to understand a pagan culture or a quantity of history given and relayed by men to ascertain God’s truth? Rather we believe by Faith in the Scripture as God’s record and it’s application upon the Created witness found in it’s order and knowledge, two witnesses one of heaven and one of earth ordained by Almighty God.)

Scripture Alone Epistemology

Thus, the Scripture Alone gives us the information to understand the Created witness of all things aside from human preservation or action, even aside from this history we are considering. By such a Epistemology we may ascertain truth directly from the source of truth, that is THE WORD OF GOD to understand the world we now live in; thereafter we may contemplate the witness of the historical record, this is how we know that the choice Polycrates Bishop of Ephesus made was correct and the choice Victor Bishop Rome made was incorrect, the Law of God is the standard, the quartodecimen followed the Scriptures and Rome did not. Regardless of the how many men in christian history moved upon the same error it is still an error according to the truth of God’s Law and Word. This is as well how we examine the term ‘The Lord’s Day’, it is by the scripture and it’s revealed truth and not by it’s defining by proceeding generations which is all we have to establish a link between the lord’s day, and sunday, and then sunday to the Passover week of Christ’s crucifixion.

So as we consider the surrounding and proceeding separations within the church at large, before and from the point of the quatrodecimen controversy what else changed along with the use of the lunar month which Polycrates, Polycarp, Melito, John, Phillip and other obviously obtained from a tradition established on, in and by the Word of God which dictated the 14th day of Abib or Nisan as the day of the pascha as well as the day of our Lord’s crucifixion which by proxy caused the day of the resurrection to be two morning’s thereafter?

Being persuaded by scriptural testimony, the meaning of the Lord’s day by the time of the writing of Justin Martyr had fallen into the realm of heathen understanding and was amalgamated into the pagan week which had been adopted by Jew’s and Christian’s alike after the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple. It is for this reason that the historian Josephus, as well as the philosopher Philo of Alexandria both never mention a comparison of the Pagan Roman week with that of the Judean or Biblical, the Pagan calendation was said to first be named by the heaven Egyptians in ancient days, and in some way or another these days transcended through time taking different forms and arrive in our modern named yet after planetary gods and Germanic equivalent’s to them.

The hing by which the ‘christian Sabbath’ swings is Passover

This is related because the Passover and the controversy surrounding it is the hing by which the ‘christian Sabbath’ swings, according to B. P. Pratten in his comments on the letter of Bishop Polycrates of Ephesus.

The truth is that most are no match for the knowledge of such a man, but I dare say any one who puts his trust in the Scriptures before all else is a match, if not an champion of the faith needed to apply the holy scriptures, and in that point we strive calling our selves after the name of Christ.

So let us suppose, for the sake of the subject that

Rev_1:10 which says, ” I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day…” that is in Greek ‘Kurakoh hemara‘ , is a day of the year, for starters: What biblical connection would we draw from?

We must start with the Possessive phrase ‘The Lord’s’, and

There is only one other place in the whole of the Greek scriptures (Including the LXX with the Apocrypha) that this possessive phrase is found, and that is in:

1Co_11:20 When ye come together therefore into one place, this is not to eat the Lord’s supper. Kuriakon deipnon ( κυριακον^G2960 δειπνον^{G1173 )}

Now it is a stretch to show that these two possessive phrases are linked, and that is why I am not asserting this as part of my faith, never the less it is quite possible it was part of some one’s faith at one time. As in my option Rev 1:10 referring to Apocalyptical ‘The Day of the LORD’ is quite convincing by phrase and concept.

Nevertheless, notice the context of the verse, it is dealing with the Communion Meal of the Passover!

So to a Greek reader who is newly come out of a pagan environment and is presented with the Gospel the two possessive phrases of ‘the lord’s day’ and ‘ ‘the lord’s supper’ may be referencing a common theme, the day of their celebration, as Justin son of Priscus the martyr held.

It is my supposition that the possessive ‘kuriok‘ of both the Lord’s supper and day were reckoned synonymous at one time by a Christian who further taught a weekly understanding based upon the Pagan calendar of Rome and then of the non-Christian Jew’s who had also chosen by the harsh punishments of the Roman’s to adopt the universal Roman week. Remember Justin was a Platonist prior, he studied Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras and part of these philosophical doctrines had a place which tied immaterial or spiritual elements together, geometry, music and intellect, and the 7 day count of the week was recognized as fitting into that system.

The Reality of the Law was set ASIDE as an Allegory

In this way, the Law was set aside as an allegory, and the allegory was compared to the analogy of 1st Corinthians which dissolved the Reality of the Law of God particularly in the western European Churches lead by Rome.

So, when we consider Justin’s remarks to Trypho the Jew concerning unleavened bread they greatly resemble a spiritual interpretation present in the church today concerning the Passover meal and the feast of unleavened bread said to be derived from Paul, and I tended it’s origin from philosophic Greek thought applied to the Scriptures void of God’s law.

First Apology of Justin Martyr:

To the Emperor Titus Aelius Adrianus Antoninus Pius Augustus Caesar, and to his son Verissimus the Philosopher, and to Lucius the Philosopher, the natural son of Caesar, and the adopted son of Pius, a lover of learning, and to the sacred Senate, with the whole People of the Romans…

Chap. LXVII (67). — Weekly Worship of the Christians.

And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons. And they who are well to do, and willing, give what each thinks fit; and what is collected is deposited with the president, who succours the orphans and widows and those who, through sickness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds and the strangers sojourning among us, and in a word takes care of all who are in need. But Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God, having wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Saviour on the same day rose from the dead. For He was crucified on the day before that of Saturn (Saturday); and on the day after that of Saturn, which is the day of the Sun, having appeared to His apostles and disciples, He taught them these things, which we have submitted to you also for your consideration.

Ηλιου λεγομένη ημέρα

(Helion Legomeneh Hamera)

Sun said day

(Only example of the middle word Legomeneh is in 2Co_9:4 λεγωμεν)

Here Justin clams that Christ rose on a sunday or literally sun said day, which may be an admission to a supposition or it may be an acknowledgment of the day’s pagan name, it is not sure. Yet we are sure that Justin constructed the time line of the Paschal week according to the Roman understanding to address the Roman government he was petitioning. And it is to Justin and a mention by a recorded of in a document called fragments of Irenaeus, but not all written by him we see:

This, of not bending the knee upon Sunday, is a symbol of the resurrection, through which we have been set free, by the grace of Christ, from sins, and from death, which has been put to death under Him. Now this custom took its rise from apostolic times, as the blessed Irenaeus, the martyr and bishop of Lyons, declares in his treatise On Easter, in which he makes mention of Pentecost also; upon which [feast] we do not bend the knee, because it is of equal significance with the Lord’s day, for the reason already alleged concerning it.

And in this we see yet more symbolism not even stated in the scriptures concerning the bending of the knee on sunday / the lord’s day and pentecost, Pentecost which biblically must be calculated in some biblical fashion in relation to the month of Abib and the sabbath according to scripture, yet as it is mentioned here it did not yet get gathered into the collective sunday feast’s of Roman Cathology as it is today a simple 50 day count from easter sunday to pentecost sunday, in ignorance to all that is written in the Scripture which knows nothing of sundays.

The Biblical Spirit vs. gnostic spiritualism

So let us center the focus upon the crux of the matter before moving on to the specifics, which in Reality are very simple on a Biblically Realistic level, but is complicated on a Spiritual religion level.

There must of course be a recognition and explanation of Biblical Spirituality.

According to the Scriptures as affirmed by Christ our Lord, there is a Spirit which has a role, it’s role by name is to make and be Holy, thus it is the Holy Spirit, a term commonly used for it. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of YHWH God. This Spirit’s Holy or sanctifying function is described by Christ as follows:

Joh_14:17 the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.

Joh_15:26 … the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me:

and

Joh_16:13 … the Spirit of truth… (that) will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.

(We shall focus even more on the aspects of the Holy Spirit in the messages to come)

This is Biblical Spirituality, it was upon the face of the waters in Genesis 1:2, He is the inspiration of God as found in His Word, it is the literal portion of Creation which came by God’s very own breath as it moved the air before His Mouth, and it is the Spirit of the Word of God which we call the Scriptures, as well as the implantation of the Man Jesus Christ who was born with in the virgin Mary, the inspiration of the Law of God, God’s Word was made flesh there. And because we believe the Spirit with our heart, we are assured that the Words in the Scripture has the ability to move literal mountains, by even a mustard seed size of Trust in the hearts of God’s people this can be done. Yet the same world the Spirit of God hovered upon suffers because Christians have been given the Spirit named above ‘Truth’ but they as a whole do not live accordingly; as the world is formless and void this Spiritual Faith based Truth would transform the Chaos into a kingdom of God as seen in Genesis 1, perfecting it time and again.

However, the majority of Christian’s Idea of Spirituality has nothing to do with material Wisdom, knowledge and understanding of tangible truths as taught by the Law’s of God’s kingdom relayed by Moses because much of Christianity is the by product of Spiritual Religion.

Spiritual Religion has little need of Reality which is able to be discerned by Truth, which allows for the Holy Spirit to show it’s formulas of Creation and be managed by the creator’s Law. Rather the literal Creation which was said to be good by YHWH God being made by His Holy dictates through Jesu Christ are declared filthy, evil and vial, a concept taught to Christians early on by philosophers knowledge of Plato and Aristotle, and thus (as discussed prior) only the intellect, only feelings which come from within ones self, from the inner Spirit in connection with this greater purer force which is entirely non-material, non-physical may please God which is pretended to be YHWH, the God of the spiritual Word with in Scripture, yet not the God, necessarily of Physical Creation.

Luciferian doctrines of the church World

The dualism at this point becomes so hard to comprehend, unless you are an avid student of it (Which I am not). But it’s doctrines are easily seen when comparing the prior Gnostic styles thought to the Christian dogma commonly held on Satan as found in the Luciferian doctrines of the church world, that: That is that Satan and or Lucifer is a fallen spirit being (practically a demigod, while not admitted as such) which has enacted his own manipulative forces upon YHWH God’s creation and has wrecked the world of the pure Spiritual God. In the mind of most Evangelicals Lucifer is the god of this world, based upon this thought applied to 2Co_4:4, which is a doctrine the entirety of the Scripture does not support, because Scripture is very clear…There is only one God of this World, which even the context of 2 Corinthians ch.4 proclaims.

Platonist thought in the Church

Nevertheless, in this system of religion as has proceeded from Philosophical thought: Good and Evil are defined as absolutes which must be reckoned as immaterial and material, physical verses spiritual, even in the application of faith, grace and love, when those fruits are manifested as material they are yet Evil, thus only spiritual faith, grace and love can be near pure.

In this religion death is intrinsically more important than life, as life is physical and of little value even if in life you manifest goodness, because the created world we live in is Lucifer’s and not YHWH’s, thus what meaning has the Lord’s prayer, “Thy Will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven?”, I will tell you what meaning, the one it has today in most churches. that the Father’s will is only Spiritual even on earth and thus not material!

Thinking such as this was part of Justin’s church, as he was a Philosopher, he carried himself as a philosopher and in His own work, as of others in his day carried this philosophic baggage into the meeting rooms of Christians, for better or worse.

Justin was not a gnostic…

Yet it is this Religion that is akin to Gnostic Christianity in it’s various and diverse ways being hybridized with various and diverse levels of Biblical understanding which produced much of the philosophic Christians of the 2nd through 4 century particularly yet up til today.

What does this have to do with time keeping, the week or the lord’s day?

Namely, it has to do with our view of God’s Created order and how we respond to it, that is if our Spirituality is aligned with the Spirit of Truth via the scriptures or wither our spirituality is esteemed higher than the scriptures. For instance, in the last message it was seen how Justin asserted a spiritual analogy of the word’s of Scripture to be the true form, and thus the material and literal form was false: Sabbath, Baptism, unleavened bread were all Spiritual references to ceasing from sin. That’s the mentality, and that’s the point. Now Justin in his own writing was not a gnostic, Justin was no longer faithful to the philosophers , such as Pythagoras, Plato and Aristotle as he writes himself, yet Justin’s application of the Scriptures are seen time and again in his writings to favor spiritualism beyond natural material application. Now this is the basis I feel needs to be entered into the equation of how realistic, and practical application as found in the Law and the totality of Scripture is set aside for a spiritual interpretation of a ‘higher form’.

Now Consider

The Roman pagan construct of abstract TIME

It will be noticed at times, if one were to pay attention to the words I chose to describe the days of the julian and gregorian week, they are referred to as ‘relative’, Why is this? This is because firstly it is impossible to prove factually that the relative day we call sunday or saturns day is in fact a successive continuation of a 7 day count which started at creation, let alone in the time of julius Cesar, let alone in the time of Christ, let alone in the time of Justin Martyr, or even of any time transoceanic travel commenced with out the use of communication devices.

Date line spiritualism…it’s supernatural!

If one would get out their favorite atlas or glob they could take there finger and slide it over to the represented place of the Bearing straight, between Russia and Alaska there is a ma drawn line, that line zigzags precariously through the Pacific Ocean until the man made line stops in Antarctica in what is call the Ross Ice Shelf after the Ross sea. The International date line as this is called, could not run the division of the earth called 180 degree exactly because it caused too much chaos with those who used the Gregotian Calendar system, so the line has been derisively placed to avoid that from happening, as to not part any land’s inhabited as to not cause two different days, such as sunday and saturday (so called) from occurring simultaneously: that’s right, your Missionary church building with it’s native island inhabitants who come to the White-Christian’s food and medicine bank’s weekly meeting on could be on sunday which is on the same day as the other White-Christian food and medicine bank who is a hard and ardent proponent of saturday as being the true day of worship, both days would be occurring at the same time as long as they were on different sides of the date line, both are meeting on the same day with in possible feet from each other! (It’s happened!) And of course at midnight o’clock the sunday food bank goes to monday and the saturday food bank reckons sunday. So imagine or reflect if you’ve done it, your cruising across the pacific and at the very point of the date line your devise updates and let’s you know you just lost or gained a day. Now, here is a question I wish for you to hold in your mind as we further consider: Is the date line material, physical and realistic, intrinsic to the heavens and earth or is it immaterial, intellectual, of a spiritual conception and not provable by the heavens and the earth?.. Just think about it.

So, “Brother, what does this have to do with Justin Martyr and Passover?”

Was it all imposed to not disturb our concepts on the Crucificion?

It does with the inability and literal insanity of our civilized system of pseudo-Christian time keeping, and it’s further evidence that the system is fallacious, and even more so now with the date line inter calculation impossible to enforce a concept of what day of the week during the time of Christ is today based upon a 7 day count, it is yet another example of Gnosticism and it’s lasting philosophic effect on the church and Christianity.

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THE LORD’s SUPPER: Pascha pt. 6 – In the spirit on the Lord’s day? (Sabbath Bible Study 1-29(2018)

SABBATH BIBLE STUDY

1-29

(2018)

(This Compilation is Esword compatable! -Just cut and past into you topic notes)

Compiled by JS LOWTHER

renewedcovenantministry.com

servant@renewedcovenantministry.com

THE LORD’S SUPPER

Christian Pascha

A Sacrament of the Faith of Jesu(s) Christ

Part 6

In the Spirit on the Lord’s Day?

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