“Hugo630i3”, the work of the law once was to continue intimate relationship with GOD, was redirected to enable mankind being in peace upon the earth, and now reinforces the salvation and transformation of created beings and living creatures who are unable to eliminate sin apart from divinity. Through operations of the Holy Spirit on behalf of Jesus Christ, Christian believers experience rebirth and permanent change whereby they become able to correctly recognize and respond to divine law as both the love of GOD, and the express will of GOD. Divine commandments and the word of GOD (we also say, “life essence,” spark of life, spirit) have been imparted to mankind from the first moments when GOD breathed sacred substance from the makeup of Deity into the form that had been fashioned as a vessel that could become a “living soul.” Included are awareness, faith, holiness, longsuffering, lovingkindness, self-will, wisdom, and wrath against sin. The purpose of what we now realize as “law” has always been to establish mankind in the same “oneness” without “sameness” that exists among the persons of the GODhead (we say, Father, Son, Holy Spirit).
Egypt represents spiritual confusion. The twelve tribes of Jacob and the mixed multitude from various nations that left Egypt with Moses had been struggling to survive in a human cesspool, so to speak. Egypt became an empire that controlled the “then known world” through the policies of the Pharaoh and its dominating influence over exchange, language, politics, religious belief, and trade. During the years of famine, the Egyptian people and others had sold their land, property, themselves and their children to Pharaoh, who numbered himself among the gods and idols to be worshipped. While the Hebrews remained free, and were despised as handlers of livestock, they nonetheless sought to assimilate (fit in) and be successful as if they were Egyptians also.
The calling out of the Hebrews is a display of the divine mercy that may only appear through consecrated judgment. Rather than repeat the destruction of all mankind and the entire world as seen with the flood of Noah’s day, GOD chose the sons of Jacob to serve as an ark and vessel to preserve divine law, demonstrate salvation, and thereby express divine prerogative, saving grace, and sovereign will. Those leaving Egypt were drawn by GOD in the same way as the animals and wild beasts that assembled in pairs to board the ship built by Noah and his sons, and like the animals of the earth, were to be in covenant relationship with GOD as a remnant. Where those from Egypt can be regarded as the “clean” beasts, those from the seven tribes who, then, occupied the “promised land” as covenant partners to GOD may be thought of as the “unclean” who were to be replaced by those of the new, Mosaic covenant. Consider the following from the Bible:
(1.) Deuteronomy 7: 1-5, King James Version (KJV): 1 When the LORD thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou; 2 And when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them: 3 Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. 4 For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the LORD be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly. 5 But thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire.
(2.) Deuteronomy 7: 6-10, KJV: 6 For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God: the LORD thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth. 7 The LORD did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people: 8 But because the LORD loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the LORD brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 9 Know therefore that the LORD thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations; 10 And repayeth them that hate him to their face, to destroy them: he will not be slack to him that hateth him, he will repay him to his face.
(3.) 1st John 1: 3-10, KJV: 3 That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. 4 And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full. 5 This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. 6 If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. 8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
There is far more to be said, correctly applied, and spiritually apprehended. (For example, (4.) 1st John 3: 7-11, KJV: 7 Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous. 8 He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. 9 Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. 10 In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother. 11 For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.) Even so, I trust this fragment will be useful. Be it unto you according to your faith.
THE BLACK PHOENIX
Washington, DC