In Isaiah chapter 58, we find the following prophecy:

Those from among you shall build the old waste places; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; and you shall be called the Repairer of the Breach, The Restorer of Streets to Dwell In (v. 12 NKJV).

The NIV translates “Repairer of the Breach” as “Repairer of Broken Walls.”

But what is the wall that has been breached? And what is the breach that we are to repair?

This imagery is taken from ancient Jerusalem, whose wall that protected it and the temple at its center was broken down when Babylon attacked Israel, sacked the city, destroyed the temple, and took the people captive. Then, after 70 years of captivity, the prophets Ezra and Nehemiah led a remnant of Israelites back to Jerusalem to not only rebuild the temple but also to repair the wall that had been breached (broken down).

In 1 Corinthians 10:6, the Bible tells us that the stories of the Old Testament were recorded as examples to us. This means that the Bible record is more than just a historical account; it is a record of real historical people, events, and places, recorded under divine inspiration to teach eternal realities. The specific lives and events recorded in Scripture were included by the inspiration of God for the purpose of advancing the plan of salvation—thus, most of the historical events have object-lesson significance to teach God’s plan to save sinners.

For example, the Exodus—a real historical event—also serves as an object lesson of God’s plan to free sinners from the slavery of sin and take us to our heavenly promised land. There are many such examples throughout Scripture. We explore some of these in the following blogs:

• Joseph: A Foreshadow of Christ
• Samson: A Foreshadow of Christ
• Why did God tell Abraham to Kill Isaac?
• Elisha and the Shunamite’s Son—An Object Lesson About Christ
• Three Rejections of God by Ancient Israel: An Object Lesson for Us

Of course, the Old Testament’s Sanctuary and Feast Days were simply an acted-out drama, theater, object lesson to teach eternal truths.

Babylon’s Object Lesson

Likewise, the events of Israel’s captivity in Babylon, while historically true, also teach eternal realities:

• Babylon is symbolic of the world and its ungodly systems and sinful methods under which the people of God are held captive and are called to leave before Jesus comes (Revelation 18:2–4).
• Jerusalem is symbolic of the city or people of God, of Zion, in which the righteous live and the temple of God is found.
• The temple is symbolic of God’s plan to heal and save people from sin; it is the place where sinners are restored to at-one-ment with God.

The historical events of Babylon breaking down the walls of Jerusalem, destroying the temple, and taking the people captive symbolize the corrupt systems of this world (Satan’s kingdom with its methods, principles, practices, and laws) warring against the true people of God (the church) in an attempt to break down the protective wall that God has given to safeguard our hearts and minds and take the people captive, in heart and mind, to a false system of worship that is represented by Babylon. This is why the call goes out in Revelation 18 for God’s people to come out of Babylon; it is because God’s people are being held captive in this fallen and corrupt system.

This same truth is taught in a variety of ways in Scripture—for instance, the little horn of Daniel 7:21 and the beast of Revelation 13:7 warring against the saints and taking them captive describe the same events. (If you would like to know more about the beasts of Revelation read our magazine Unmasking the Beasts of Revelation 13 & 17).

The apostle Paul describes this same breach, the same taking captive of hearts and minds, in 2 Thessalonians 2:4, where he describes the man of lawlessness setting himself up in God’s temple and proclaiming himself to be God. Paul is describing the man of sin, the lawless one, breaching the walls of protection that God has placed around His people and entering God’s temple, setting himself up as the one worshiped instead of God.

Paul wrote this passage about 20 years after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension into heaven. Satan did not ride into heaven and set himself up there. And the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed shortly after Paul wrote this passage, so Satan did not set himself up in that temple. Therefore, Paul is not talking about either the temple in Jerusalem or the one in heaven; rather, he is talking about the Spirit temple where our Creator God is to be enthroned. It is by breaching the wall of protection God has given us that has enabled Satan to storm in and take captive the hearts and minds of people and enthrone himself as the god that billions worship today.

We see evidence of this throughout history in the people who claimed the name Christian (those who profess by that name that they are like Christ) but who went on crusades, burned people at the stake, and carried out the Inquisition—along with many other un-Christlike activities (burning crosses in the yard of people of a different race for example). Indeed, it is only possible for people who claim to be Christian to do such grossly un-Christlike activities if the true Christ has been replaced in their hearts and minds with a false one.

Isaiah’s prophecy, like so many other real historical events in the Bible, had both a historical fulfillment—in this case, in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah—but also an end-time fulfillment, which is a call for the remnant, the people who are true to God, to leave Babylon and repair the breach in the protective wall that God has given to guard our hearts and minds against satanic assault.

The question for us today is: What is the protective wall, how was it breached, and how do we rebuild it?

The Breached Wall

Isaiah adds some details that give important clues to the nature of the wall that has been breached, the wall that protects our hearts and minds:

If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on My holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy day of the LORD honorable, and shall honor Him, not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words, then you shall delight yourself in the LORD; and I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth, and feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father. The mouth of the LORD has spoken (Isaiah 58:13,14 NKJV).

Isaiah identifies one of God’s commandments in connection with the repairing of the breach. This suggests that the wall of protection may be connected to God’s law. Jeremiah and the writer of Hebrews go further than Isaiah; they identify the entire law of God as pivotal to our restoration in the new covenant:

This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time, declares the LORD. I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people (Jeremiah 31:33; Hebrews 8:10 NIV84).

There were two covenants because there are two kinds of law in play—God’s design laws and the imposed laws that creatures make up. The old covenant was formed at Sinai when the Israelites chose a covenant of law and performance over a covenant of love and trust. In other words, the Israelites believed and practiced the idea that God’s law functions like human-imposed law, rules imposed that they were to obey, and if they didn’t, then their sense of justice would demand that they be punished, but if they did obey, then they believed they would earn rewards. This is the covenant that Paul exposes as false in the books of Romans and Galatians—the legal, rules-oriented, works system of law-keeping rather than faith, rather than love and trust that comes from reconciliation with God and living in harmony with how He built life to operate.

The old covenant was based on the people’s false belief that God’s law is imposed and that righteousness is to be found in their law-keeping, which earns either rewards or punishments meted out justly by a “just God.” But as can be seen in the Jeremiah and Hebrews texts above, while God’s new covenant is not legal it also has law involved, but in the new covenant, the people recognize and embrace the truth that God’s laws are design laws, the laws the Creator has built reality upon and not rules like humans make up. God’s laws must become the principles upon which hearts and minds operate, not merely rules to govern external behavior. Jeremiah makes clear how God’s laws function:

This is what the LORD says: “If I have not established my covenant with day and night and the fixed laws of heaven and earth, then I will reject the descendants of Jacob and David my servant and will not choose one of his sons to rule over the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. For I will restore their fortunes and have compassion on them” (Jeremiah 33:25, 26 NIV84, my emphasis).

God’s laws are “the fixed laws” that govern heaven and earth! God’s laws are the laws the Creator has built reality to operate upon, such as the laws of physics, health, and the moral laws. Created beings cannot speak reality into existence and, therefore, we make up rules that we call “laws,” but our rules require external enforcement through the infliction of punishment. This is how Satan, a created being, governs. Imposed laws with imposed punishments are how the kingdoms of this world function—and Jesus said His kingdom is not of this world! (John 18:36). His kingdom does not function like human kingdoms; it is not built upon made-up rules that require the infliction of external punishments. Jesus is the Creator, His kingdom is reality itself, and His laws are the laws that govern and sustain reality.

The wall of God’s protection is the wall of reality, of design law, of the protocols He built reality to function upon. When we understand and appreciate God’s design laws, it always causes us to worship God as Creator and to understand that sin, breaking God’s design laws, is the cause of pain, suffering, and death, while God is the source of life, healing, and salvation (Romans 6:23; Galatians 6:8; James 1:15). But when we exchange God’s design laws for Satan’s imposed-law system, then we exchange the truth of God’s character for Satan’s and teach that God is the source of torture and death, which He inflicts upon the unrepentant as “just” punishment for sin. Thus, the lawless one, the one who denies and replaces the design laws of God with made-up, imposed rules, sets himself up in God’s temple (human hearts and minds) proclaiming himself to be God.

The Wall Restored

Isaiah prophesied that before Christ returns, there will be a people who repair the breach. These people will recognize the design laws of God that Jesus spoke about when He said,

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:37–40 NIV84).

Just like the remnant of Israelites who left Babylon under the leadership of Nehemiah, this end-time remnant will leave the systems of imposed-law theology. (Remember, of all the nations that interacted with Israel in the Bible story arc, Babylon was the first to create an imposed legal code—the code of Hammurabi. Thus, Babylon rightly represents the kingdoms of this world and the theological constructs that teach that God’s kingdom functions like human kingdoms, with made-up rules and imposed punishments.)

The end-time remnant will reject this sinful human-law view of God’s kingdom and return to worshiping God as Creator, understanding that His laws are the protocols that reality itself functions upon.

But because the prophecy connects repairing the breach, the broken wall, with the Sabbath, some Christians, Seventh-day Adventists in particular, have concluded that this prophecy means returning to worship services on the Bible Sabbath instead of Sunday. But this prophecy is much broader than a weekly day of worship! It encompasses every aspect of living, for it calls us to delight in the Sabbath—not merely keep it as a rule we must follow. This means that the prophecy is calling us to return to living in harmony with God’s design laws for life, of which the Bible Sabbath is symbolic, or a sign.

Consider the origins of sin. The angels who followed Satan into rebellion, into disobeying God’s law, did so before there was a weekly Sabbath. The sin problem did not originate over a Sabbath-versus-Sunday question, and it will not end over such a surface question. The sin problem will end over what these two days represent: They are signs—or pennants or marks or emblems—of two types of law and, therefore, two types of government and, ultimately, two different gods.

The Sabbath was created as a day set apart by God; Sunday was not created by God as a day set apart from the other days, but it became a day set apart from the other days of the week through human legislation. Thus, the two days represent two types of law—design law and imposed law.

The deeper issue is not the actual day, but the law and government the days represent. One of the founders of the Adventist Church understood this difference, writing:

The prophet thus points out the ordinance which has been forsaken: “Thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in. If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on My holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable; and shalt honor Him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord.” … This prophecy also applies in our time. The breach was made in the law of God when the Sabbath was changed by the Roman power. But the time has come for that divine institution to be restored. The breach is to be repaired and the foundation of many generations to be raised up (The Great Controversy, p. 452, emphasis mine).

In the time of the end every divine institution is to be restored. The breach made in the law at the time the Sabbath was changed by man, is to be repaired. God’s remnant people, standing before the world as reformers, are to show that the law of God is the foundation of all enduring reform and that the Sabbath of the fourth commandment is to stand as a memorial of creation, a constant reminder of the power of God. In clear, distinct lines they are to present the necessity of obedience to all the precepts of the Decalogue. Constrained by the love of Christ, they are to co-operate with Him in building up the waste places. They are to be repairers of the breach, restorers of paths to dwell in (Prophets and Kings, p. 678, emphasis mine).

Notice here that the author did not write, “The breach was made by the change in the Sabbath” or that “the change of the Sabbath is the breach in the law,” but that the breach occurred “at the time” or “when” the Sabbath was changed by man. The breach in the law was not the changing of the Sabbath; the true breach in the law is the change in how we understand God’s law, from design law to imposed rules—the type of law that can be changed.

The changing of the Sabbath to Sunday is the evidence, the fruit, the result of the breach. It is the proof that the Christian world believes God’s law functions like human law, and, therefore, sin is rule breaking, and God’s justice is the use of His power to inflict punishment upon sinners, in which He becomes the source of pain, suffering, and death from which we need protection. In this way, Satan has successfully set himself up in God’s Spirit temple to be worshiped by billions. It is a sad fact that today, almost the entire Christian world, regardless of denomination, no longer recognizes that God’s laws are design laws.

Thus, the true repairers of the breach of Isaiah’s prophecy will be those who teach the truth that God’s laws are design laws and not imposed rules. In so doing, we call people back to worship the Creator who made the heavens, earth, sea, and fountains of water (Revelation 14:7). We teach people reality and how to cooperate with God to actually become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21).

And we recognize that even if we do value the Bible Sabbath yet continue to believe the lie that God’s law functions like human law, we have not repaired the breach; we have not left the Roman system of worship; we have not left Babylon; and we are still advancing the counterfeit to God’s kingdom, just as the Jews did two thousand years ago when they had the Bible Sabbath but the wrong law and the wrong god (John 8:44).

So, with design law, we understand that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. We understand that it is God’s gift, promise, evidence, demonstration, revelation of His character and how His design-law government functions—how He governs. We understand that God does not use power to force His way; this is the truth of the Sabbath’s gift to us! For love exists only in an atmosphere of freedom, of which the Sabbath is a sign. God is the Creator—He has all power, and the danger with all power is that it can intimidate, it can cause fear, it can damage individuality, it can undermine love, it can shut down thinking, it can lead to mindless pawns and drones doing what the powerful sovereign says or else—so God created the Sabbath, a revelation, demonstration, evidence that He does NOT govern by imposed law and enforced rules. For after six days of using His immense power to create, the Sabbath was set apart by God when He STOPPED using power, when He rested, when He created a time for His creatures to think and consider and come to their own conclusions without the threat of punishment being inflicted by Him.

Thus, the Sabbath is a memorial to God as Creator and His design laws that all reality is built upon—for what God wants from His intelligent creatures is our love, trust, loyalty, devotion, and friendship, and that can never be achieved through human law, through the use of might and power; it cannot be achieved through intimidation, threats, and inflicted punishments. In fact, when people present God as the cosmic enforcer and punisher, they advance Satan’s rebellion and undermine trust in God, negating the very purpose and function of the Sabbath—a sign that God is holy and restores us to holiness when we trust Him! (Exodus 31:13; Ezekiel 20:12).

So I invite you to join me in repairing the breach in the wall by rejecting the lie that God’s laws function like human law, made-up, imposed rules and by embracing the truth that God is Creator and His laws are design laws upon which all reality is built to function. Reject the lie that God is the source of pain, suffering, and death inflicted upon sinners, and instead realize that it is sin, the breaking of God’s design laws for life, that brings forth death, recognizing that God is the source of life—the One whom through Jesus restores His living law into our hearts and minds (Hebrews 8:10). I implore you to realize that Babylon, that system of imposed laws, with its made-up rules and punishing god, is fallen. Hear God’s call to His people to come out of that unjust, fear-inducing, fallen, and broken system and return to genuine Creator worship!

Codependency, or dependency, is an unhealthy relationship structure in which strong feelings of attraction are mistaken for true love. The underlying motivating energy that drives and sustains dependency relationships is the exact opposite of love; it is fear—fear of rejection, fear of abandonment, fear of inadequacy, fear of not being loved, fear of being alone, fear of being bad, fear of punishment, fear of condemnation, and the myriad other forms that fear takes. Such fear causes internal insecurity, a feeling of terror, dread, and doubt, which is often accompanied by guilt and shame.

For the dependent person, the internal sense of self is typically formed from imagined or perceived flaws, and any actual shortcomings are markedly inflated and distorted by the fear into crushing doubts and a warped sense of individuality—one marked by the foreboding feeling of certain rejection if others ever saw them in the same way they feel about themselves. “If people knew me, they would hate me; I don’t deserve to be loved; I am not as good as others,” etc.

The fear and distorted sense of self cause feelings of desperation, a crushing sense of failure, which demands that action be taken to relieve the emotional burden. The internal self-condemnation and sense of inadequacy can be momentarily relieved when one experiences acceptance, validation, or approval from another. The experience of perceiving oneself to be loved, valued, and appreciated provides an emotional counterbalance to the sinking feelings of inadequacy.

However, for the dependent person, this external validation becomes an internal emotional counterweight upon which they depend for their internal sense of wholeness and peace. That is, they need someone else to make them feel whole, complete, worthwhile, acceptable, and secure in themselves as a person.

Trapped in the Cycle

Yet even though other people’s approval makes them feel better about themselves (in that moment), because no objective change has happened in the heart, mind, or attitude of the dependent person about themselves, they don’t actually believe they are worthy of the affection they are receiving and fear it is only a matter of time before they will be “found out,” rejected, and lose the affirmation they so desire. Thus, they live, instead of in other-centered love, in fear of losing that which they desperately need.

Such a state of mind leads to interpreting innocent events as threats—a spouse comes home late, and suspicion arises that they were with another, more lovable person; a comment is made about not enjoying a certain dish, which is interpreted as “I can’t do anything right.” This leads to external monitoring, attempts to control, accusations, and criticisms, all based on fear of loss rather than love for the other.

Further, the person with this internal sense of inadequacy doesn’t believe that truly mature, healthy people will find them attractive, so being around such people increases their sense of anxiety and fear of rejection; thus, they gravitate toward and prefer people struggling with similar emotional problems, which causes the codependent parties to inflame the fears and wounds in one another rather than help each other heal.

If you had been living in the woods for weeks and were unwashed, unshaven, and wearing dirty clothes, whom would you feel more comfortable associating with? A typical church crowd, doctors at a renowned medical convention, patrons at a nice restaurant, or homeless drug addicts living in a tent city? In a similar manner, those who have formed a sense of self that is viewed as less than others will actively avoid emotionally healthy people and, instead, seek to form relationships with people struggling with similar problems, which leads to the very common codependent relationship.

Repeated Self-Destruction

Let me be clear: People struggling with dependency or who are in codependent relationships are not “evil” people; they are not “bad” people. They are hurting, wounded, struggling people, and in my experience, they often are some of the best people in heart, people who desperately long to be good, healthy, happy, and free—people who want to be successful and to be bastions of strength for their families and communities, but who struggle to achieve that outcome simply because of unhealed emotional wounds.

The codependent relationship is a result of the emotional woundedness impacting and directing their choices in how they connect and relate to people. The decisions of a dependent person are primarily made out of fear rather than other-centered love; thus, decisions are made in regard to what they think the other person will think of them, how the other person will respond, how the other person will feel, rather than what is objectively right, healthy, and reasonable in their governance of self.

This kind of decision-making moves the motive for making choices away from one’s own judgment, from what one determines would actually be best in any given situation, to their perception of what another person would be most pleased with or least disappointed with, regardless of what is actually healthiest or best.

For instance, a codependent person might determine that it is healthy and reasonable to say yes to an invitation to attend a Bible study one evening after work. But rather than saying yes, they say no because of the fear that their significant other will be mad at them if they do. The fear of the other person’s response overrules their own judgment—and the emotional need not to be rejected or devalued by their partner, and the need to keep the partner happy, is more important to them than doing what their own judgment determines is best. This is ultimately driven by fear, the fear of losing the support, affection, and affirmation of the one they emotionally depend upon.

Unfortunately, this type of decision-making worsens the individual who makes such decisions. Why? When we make a choice to go against our own good judgment for ourselves, our judgment makes a new judgment that says about oneself, “You’re weak! You’re a coward! You’re spineless! You make me sick!” And, as a result, one’s self-esteem falls further, making one feel even more certain that they are less than others—thus, they need greater external approval to offset their increasing internal condemnation and they fear external disapproval even more, making them more likely to give in to the wishes of the other person, perpetuating the dependency cycle.

This process persists in codependent relationships because one’s internal wholeness, peace with self, and well-being don’t come from a healthy relationship with Jesus Christ, from knowing the truth of one’s worth as a child of God, from developing within oneself an internal healthy self-judgment, or from the experience of actually choosing to do what one determines, in their own judgment, is best, but, instead, one’s internal sense of self comes from the validation and approval of others.

The thought of losing that external validation is experienced as terrifying—as if one is going to die.

Imagine the case of a navy diver, the old-fashioned type depicted in the movie Men of Honor starring Cuba Gooding, Jr., and Robert DeNiro. In that movie, they wore suits with air lines to the surface where pumps delivered air to the divers below. If you were one of those men, you would be dependent on those on the surface for your air. Should someone on the surface tell you to stand on one foot or they would cut off your air, what would you do? And if you wanted to go to the right, but the ship turned to the left, what choice would you have? It parallels the situation in a dependent relationship, in which true freedom does not exist. But because the need is so great, intense feelings get associated with the one toward whom the dependence is directed.

Imagine yourself drowning underwater and then someone brings you an air line. Would you value that person? Would you have intense feelings for the individual? Would you want to hold on to him or her? And how would it feel if he or she decided to leave and take the air line with them?

Individuals can become so dependent on the emotional support from those on whom they rely that they experience the threat of losing their source of nurturance with the same fear and anxiety that divers would if someone threatened to cut their air off. It feels as if they are going to die. Because their anxiety is so intense, persons in dependent relationships go to extremes and take desperate measures to prove their “love” to the ones on whom they depend in order to convince them to stay. And if the proclamations of affection don’t get returned, often the dependent persons will threaten harm to themselves or even those on whom they cling—all designed to retain control of the needed person. [1]

The Need for Healing

There is healing for people who struggle with dependency relationships, but the first steps are realizing that one is struggling with dependency and differentiating those emotions from healthy love.

A simple test to determine if your relationship is a healthy love relationship—in which flawed people are applying godly principles to help one another overcome their shortcomings and to mature and grow versus a dependency relationship in which partners are only causing each other more emotional wounds—is to look at the list that I have included below. Take each item and ask yourself, “Over the course of this relationship, compared to where I was when I entered this relationship, where am I today? Am I healthier or, in fact, getting worse?”

Put a checkmark next to the appropriate statement in each column. Then look at the total number of checkmarks for each column; if the vast majority are on the dependency side, then it is highly likely that you are in a relationship governed by fear and insecurity rather than love.

The Test: Since being in this relationship:

If you find yourself in a codependent relationship, don’t be discouraged; in fact, be encouraged that you have just taken the first step toward health and wellness, which is recognizing and admitting the truth, realizing a problem exists, and now, with that awareness, you can make choices to heal, change, and overcome!

Steps to Breaking the Dependency Cycle

If you are in a dependency cycle, consider the following simple steps to deal with the fear and insecurity that dominate your decision-making:

Step 1: Go to Jesus, right now, and tell Him about your fears, heartaches, wounds, doubts, and insecurities. He already knows them, but He cannot fix your heart without your engagement, permission, and cooperation. So, go to Him and tell Him all about your struggles. Ask Him to become your source of love, validation, comfort, and strength. Accept His offer to be your Friend, Comforter, Counselor, Savior, and Healer. He longs to pour His love into your heart (Romans 5:5). Repeat this step at the beginning of every day and any time you are feeling lonely and afraid.

Step 2: Choose to love truth above all things, especially feelings. Jesus said, “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). If we want to get well, to heal, we must be truthful with ourselves about our situation. First, start with the truth of who you are—a child of God, wounded to be sure, but highly prized, one whom Jesus can heal and restore if you let Him.

But also recognize this truth: Once there is brokenness, woundedness, or injury of any kind—there are no pain-free options! The only options we have after we are wounded are to heal or not heal, but the path of healing, whether setting a bone, cleaning dirt out of an abrasion, or resolving trauma issues, is accompanied by pain and discomfort. If we choose only that which hurts the least and feels the best in the moment, then we persistently choose to avoid healing and things will get worse. Refocus your mind and base your choice on the truth: “I have wounds, and my wounds can be healed, but only if I stop running from the discomfort, stand my ground, and apply the truth to my life.”

If you are confused and don’t know how to address the problems to bring healing, then seek professional help. Just as none of us would try to set a broken bone by ourselves, but would seek the help of an orthopedic surgeon, likewise, seek professional Christian counseling for your broken heart!

Step 3: Recognize that feelings can lie. Just because something hurts doesn’t mean it is harmful. Look past the feeling to understand why that feeling is there. Is the pain being caused by cleaning dirt out of a wound, setting a bone, or going to therapy? Then recognize the feelings are the legitimate discomfort that comes from resolving wounds and don’t conclude that because it feels bad, it is bad. Feelings must be understood in the light of objective truth!

Step 4: Apply the truth: When the feeling of fear arises—the fear of rejection, insecurity, or the internal discomfort that comes when the person you are currently emotionally dependent upon is upset with you—at that very moment, inside your own head, say: “STOP! What is the truth? Am I doing what is unhealthy, wrong, unreasonable, or am I doing what is right, healthy, and reasonable in governance of myself but my partner doesn’t like it?” If the answer is the latter, then apply step 5.

Step 5: Set the other person free to respond in any way they choose. Inside your own heart and mind say, “I give my partner freedom to be mad if they need to be mad, to pout if they need to pout, to shout, rage, slam doors, and get upset if that is the only way they can cope in this moment. I do not give myself the freedom to choose evil or change my actions simply because the person I love doesn’t like my choice. If they want me to make a different choice, I eagerly invite their ideas, rationale, evidence, and perspective to persuade me to a more rational, healthy, and mature decision—but I will no longer make decisions in the governance of myself based on how another person feels or responds.” And when you set the other person free to have any response they choose, you have just set yourself free from their control over you! (If the other person becomes physically violent, do what is right and healthy: get away and call the police.)

Step 6: Differentiate imagination from reality. Don’t allow your imagination to create fantasy futures that don’t exist and then react to those imagined fears. Instead, govern your imagination to plan your actions based on what is objectively true, right, reasonable, and healthy.

Step 7: Define what is actually yours to choose, govern, or control—and let go of that which is not. And what is always yours to choose, govern, and control is yourself, your beliefs, your boundaries, your attitudes, your actions, but you are never in control of what other people think, feel, or how they respond. Learning to set others free will free you from the burden of worrying about their responses and attitudes toward you.

Step 8: Recognize that your partner’s response informs you about them. Incorporate that information into an ever-expanding assessment of reality, of who you are dealing with, and then respond by applying that truth in your own decision-making in the governance of self. Set new boundaries by not taking the blame for another’s shortcomings but allowing others to hold responsibility for themselves.

If you have struggled with dependency relationships, don’t be discouraged! I encourage you to experience hope and healing by applying God’s methods and principles of truth, altruistic love, and freedom to your life.

And if you or someone you love is struggling with dependency problems and you have tried self-help solutions, outpatient counseling, or other interventions yet things are not improving, and you would like an intensive, Christ-centered holistic treatment program, consider Honey Lake Clinic as a therapeutic option.

Honey Lake Clinic is a holistic residential treatment center in which we help people identify and resolve the underlying fears, insecurities, and traumas that contribute to dependency attachments. We treat the whole person—mind, body, and spirit—with proven, reality-based interventions that help people experience restoration to wellness—to harmony with the laws of health, the protocols upon which God has built life to exist and operate.

[1] Jennings, Timothy, Could It Be This Simple? A Biblical Model for Healing the Mind, Lennox Publishing, 2010, p. 70.

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What a Friend we have in You, Jesus,

All our sufferings, heartaches, and sin-sickness You bear.

What a privilege to carry all our burdens to You in prayer,

For we are weak, but You are strong.

We are discouraged, but You are our hope.

We are selfish, but You are selfless.

We are takers, but You are the Giver.

We know little, but You know everything.

We discern poorly, but You discern perfectly.

We are foolish, but You are the Wisdom we need.

We have minds ensnared by lies, but You are the truth that sets us free.

We struggle with resentments, but You forgive freely.

We are fearful, but You are the love that casts out our fear.

We are sick at heart, but You are our cure.

We are terminal in sin, but You are our remedy.

We have been Your enemies, but we surrender all to You, our Friend.

So now, when we are tired, You give us strength.

When we stumble and fall, You pick us up.

When we have questions, You provide answers.

When we have doubts, You give us evidence.

When we are wounded, You heal our hearts.

When we are lonely, You comfort us.

When we are confused, You bring us understanding.

When we are lost, You lead us home.

When others betray us, You stand by us.

When temptation comes, You always make a way of escape.

When we are grieving, You put Your arms of love around us.

When we take our eyes off You, You still watch over us.

When we remember You, You run to us.

When we walk with You, You transform us.

What a Friend we have in You, Jesus,

For we were once Your enemies,

But now we are finally Your friends!

Thank You, Jesus!

The way we understand the Bible and its themes, such as imputed and imparted righteousness, is determined by the law lens through which we view them. If we believe that God’s law functions no differently than human law—imposed rules requiring imposed punishments—then we interpret Scripture legally and penally, which is a fantasy because God’s universe is not built upon imposed law and, therefore, it is not how reality actually functions. (If you are wondering, if God’s kingdom is not built on imposed law then why did God use so much law in Old Testament times? see our blog The Death Penalty In Old Testament Times).

But if we worship God as Creator and understand that His laws are the design laws upon which all reality exists and operates—both the physical laws (gravity, physics, etc.) and the moral laws—then we interpret Scripture objectively and truthfully, in the way that reality actually functions.

When we understand that God’s laws are design laws, we know that breaking them is directly damaging to the one who breaks them and results in suffering and death unless the Creator of reality fixes the problem, restoring the one damaged (the sinner) back into harmony with God and His designs for life. This is why the Bible teaches that the law must be written upon our hearts and minds (Hebrews 8:10) and that those who sow to the carnal nature “from that nature [that is, not externally by God] will reap destruction” (Galatians 6:8 NIV84). For an exact explanation as to why Christ had to die for our salvation and how we experience it, please see our blogs Salvation and the Cleansing of our Spirit—Part 1 and Part 2.

But if we substitute man’s law in place of God’s law, denying that His laws are design laws, we believe the lie that God’s law functions no differently than the kinds of laws sinners make up—rules that do not govern reality but which, instead, require a ruling authority to use external power to inflict punishment upon the wrongdoer—then we draw a completely different conclusion about the sin problem and the plan of salvation, including what the terms imputed righteousness and imparted righteousness mean.

All treatment starts with a proper diagnosis. If the diagnosis is wrong, then the treatment is wrong. Imputed and imparted righteousness are words, technical terms, that are intended to communicate some aspect of God’s treatment for the sin problem.

The Legalization of Righteousness

If we believe that sin causes a legal problem (because we believe God’s law functions like human law), then we will ascribe legal meanings to these terms, such things as adjusting our legal standing in legal books in heaven—or giving us some kind of legal credit that somehow improves our righteousness credit score from an “unrighteous” legal status to a “righteous” legal status.

The following are typical descriptions given by those who view Scripture through the lens of human law:

• “Jesus lived a perfect, sinless life, and when you put your trust in him, he takes his righteousness and credits it to your account. You gain access to righteousness not because of anything you have done but because Christ applied it to your account. This imputed righteousness puts you in right standing before the Father as if you had done the right thing all along” (emphasis mine).[1]
• [Imputed righteousness] is “charging to an account, used in the Bible with legal reference to sin and salvation being recorded by God. … When Scripture speaks of the imputation of good or evil, it does not suggest that any change of moral character is involved. Scripture does affirm that, from God’s perspective, righteousness or sin is charged to an individual’s account (emphasis mine).[2]

Notice that in both of these statements, the sin problem is defined in legal terms—seeing it through a human-law lens, made-up rules requiring legal oversight, legal accounting, inflicted punishment as penalties, awarding credits, canceling debts, and changing records.

This entire legal theological construct is false because it is all based on the lie that God’s law functions like human law. It is a fiction, a fantasy, because it is not based in what happens in reality.

What is the reality?

God did not get changed when Adam sinned, nor did His law get changed. Instead, the actual condition of Adam changed. Adam did not get into legal trouble with God; he experienced lethal trouble. He was changed from a being who lived and operated upon God’s living law of love to a being who was infected with fear and selfishness. Instead of Adam remaining in a state of loving unity with his never-changing Creator, living in harmony with His never-changing design laws, he entered a state of being “dead in trespass and sin,” a terminal sin condition that, without remedy from the Creator, would result in death.

The Infection of Death Spreads

And since God gave Adam and Eve the ability to create beings in their image, once they infected themselves with sin, when they reproduced they would give birth only to children infected with their terminal sin condition. Thus, as Scripture teaches, we are born in sin, conceived in iniquity (Psalm 51:5).

We are not born legally guilty (fantasy); we are born terminal (reality)—born dead in trespass and sin.

Consider an HIV-infected man and woman getting together and having a baby who is born HIV-infected—what did the baby do wrong? Nothing! The baby has no guilt for their condition. But the baby still has a condition that without remedy will cause symptoms and death. That is the situation of every human since Adam sinned!

We are born with a terminal sin condition; we are not born legally guilty. Therefore, the solution to the sin problem is not a legal one—it is an actual one. It is the actual removal of the sin condition from our hearts and minds, replacing it with a condition that is right, a condition that is right with God, a heart that rightly harmonizes with God’s design laws for life—in other words, with a righteous condition. The real solution for us as individual sinners is that we must be reborn, recreated, renewed, cleansed, washed, purified, have our hearts circumcised by the Spirit, have the heart of stone removed and a tender heart instilled, have the mind of Christ, all of which is symbolically taught through various biblical metaphors and object lessons, including the wearing of the robe of Christ’s righteousness—we become righteous (2 Corinthians 5:21). Reality requires that we be actually made righteous, not that record books be adjusted to declare we are righteous while we remain unrighteous.

In the legal model, righteousness does not mean that we are made righteous; it means God legally declares us righteous based on Jesus being righteous, and God adjusts our records in heaven to legally account us as being considered, reckoned, or credited as righteous even though we are unrighteous in reality. It is a big fraud, a con game, a shell game, a farce!

The functional impact of this false theology is to trick good-hearted people into believing things are well and good with God while they remain unrighteous in their heart and slowly dying of their sin condition.

This legal fiction is like telling someone with leukemia, for which there is a real cure that will put the cancer into remission, that what they need is to claim their healthy brother as their legal substitute so when the doctor comes in to examine them, the doctor will instead examine their healthy brother and write into the sick person’s medical record the perfect health of their cancer-free brother. Then the doctor will declare that they are cancer-free while they continue to die of the leukemia.

Another way to describe this fraud would be that your child is dying of cancer and your doctor tells you there is nothing he can do, but you hear of a doctor whose every patient leaves his office with a clean bill of health. So you take your child to this doctor, bringing with you the thick medical record documenting all the disease, pathology, symptoms, and sickness. The doctor takes the record, opens it, begins removing all the documentation of the sickness and disease, and then stuffs the record with clean white sheets of paper. He then hands the cleansed record back to you and says, “You can go home now; no more record of disease.”

Paul warned Timothy about this powerless and fraudulent Christianity:

But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them (2 Timothy 3:1–5 NIV84, emphasis mine).

It is a sad fact that epidemiological data confirms that there is no difference between Christian homes and non-Christian homes in the rate of drug abuse, alcohol addiction, pornography use, spouse abuse, and child molestation.[3] These struggling Christians have a form of godliness, a religiosity, but they have no power to live victoriously. Why? Because they believe the penal/legal fraud based on the lie that God’s law functions like human law—that imputed righteousness is God accounting someone to be righteous when, in fact, they remain unrighteous.

True Godliness and Power

The truth is that righteousness is being right with God in heart, mind, attitude, spirit, and character. Genuine righteousness is actual; it is not legal fiction. As Paul wrote, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21 NIV84, emphasis mine).

The substitutionary sinless life and sacrificial death of Jesus was to fix the actual problem Adam’s sin caused in humans so that we might become the righteousness of God—not so that we will be declared righteous while remaining unrighteous.

So what then is imputed and imparted righteousness? And what role does each play in us actually becoming righteous people?

Imputed Righteousness

Becoming human, Jesus took up humanity damaged by Adam, lived a sinless life, destroyed the sin infection at the cross (see our blog How Jesus Our Substitute Cleanses Our Spirit) and, thereby, restored the species human to rightness with God. But Jesus’ perfect righteousness doesn’t make us righteous as individuals unless we partake of that righteousness. And what obstructs us from partaking of it? Believing the lies about God that keep us from trusting Him. Thus, the imputed righteousness helps us overcome the distrusting spirit of fear so that we open our heart in trust to receive the imparted righteousness that actually transforms us.

As Paul wrote, the carnal mind has enmity toward God (Romans 8:7)—our natural state, the one we inherited from Adam, distrusts God, is hostile toward God, doesn’t align with or harmonize with God. We believe the lie that God is punishing, severe, and unforgiving and requires something be done to Him to appease His wrath, assuage His anger, propitiate His fury. Thus, in fear of what He will do to us, we do not open our hearts to God, we do not have a change in fear functioning toward God, but we remain afraid, desperately claiming legal protection provided by Jesus from this punishing God.

Thus, the first step in God fixing the sin problem in any individual is to win that person from fear and distrust to love and trust. This is done by imputing righteousness—God treating the sinner with the righteousness of Christ, treating the sinner with mercy, grace, kindness, love, understanding, compassion, acceptance, seeing them as a soul suffering from sin-sickness that they did not choose and from which He can heal if they let Him. In other words, God does not impute sin to them and treat them as sin deserves (e.g., letting them die of their sin condition), but imputes to them, or treats them, with the love, mercy, grace, and goodness that belong to His Son Jesus, rather than abandoning them as Jesus was abandoned on the cross when He became sin for us.

It is this kind, compassionate, gracious, righteousness imputed to us that wins us to trust. And as Paul wrote, “God’s kindness leads you to repentance” (Romans 2:4 NET).

God, imputing to us the righteousness of His Son and treating us with kindness, love, mercy, grace, sees through the corridors of time to what we will be if we trust Him—we will become the righteousness of God. And it is this kindness of God that leads us to repentance, and repentance is the conversion experience; it is when the distrusting heart that is at enmity with God chooses to trust God. In other words, conversion, repentance, is when the heart is set right with God, set from distrust to trust.

This is what happened to Abraham—he had faith, trusted God, and it was only after his heart had changed from distrust/enmity to trust that God recognized, accounted, or marked that Abraham was righteous, set right, justified. Why? Because Abraham’s heart was set right with God again! Abraham’s actual state of heart was changed! Being justified, made right with God, is actual, real, and occurs in the heart and mind of the sinner. There is nothing penal or legal going on, for the problem is not penal or legal; it is an actual state of being that is out of harmony with God and His design for life. The heavenly records are like medical records; the reason Abraham’s heavenly record changed was because Abraham’s heart was set right with God. And what caused Abraham’s heart to be set right? God’s imputed righteousness, which won Abraham to trust.

Imparted Righteousness

Once the imputed righteousness wins a person to trust and their heart is opened to God, then they receive the imparted righteousness that fills the heart with the righteousness of Christ. We receive new desires, pure motives, new insights, inspiration, direction, and daily strength to succeed, which all come from the perfect life (spirit) of Jesus being infused into us by the indwelling Holy Spirit. We become partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4); it is no longer our old sinful, carnal selves living but Christ living in us (Galatians 2:20). Jesus is the vine and we are the branches that live by daily receiving the infusion of His life (righteous loving spirit) imparted to us via the indwelling Holy Spirit (John 15:4-6).

We see this demonstrated powerfully in the story of the woman caught in adultery (John 8:4–11). When she was dragged before Christ, He did not impute her sin to her (He did not treat her as guilty nor abandon her to her fate) but, instead, He treated her with His imputed righteousness, the righteousness of what she could be if she would only trust Him. And His imputed righteousness—His grace, forgiveness, kindness, not counting her sin against her—won her to trust, and she opened her heart to receive a new heart and right spirit, the imparted righteousness of Jesus.

Summary

When we experience the imputed righteousness of Christ—the love, affection, mercy, kindness, grace, patience, forgiveness, and longing to heal us—we open the heart and are reborn as we trust our Savior. The new heart and right spiritual attitude and desires within us are Christ’s that we receive through trust; the power to resist the old habits, fear, selfishness, lusts, the carnal desires is from God through the indwelling Holy Spirit—but the choice is ours! When tempted, we, by faith, can choose to say yes to Jesus, yes to the desires of the imparted righteousness, the new motives of love and trust, and say no to the fear and selfishness. And when we choose to say yes to the spirit of Christ, we then receive the divine power to succeed—but we don’t get the power until we make the choice. And it is this cooperative relationship of faith/trust in Jesus that develops a character like Christ’s within us.

There is nothing penal/legal going on in God’s remedying of the sin-problem in our hearts; imputed and imparted righteousness are actual, reality-based events occurring within the heart and mind of the individual—just as Jesus said: “The kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21).

[1] https://www.christianity.com/wiki/christian-terms/what-is-imputed-righteousness.html
[2] Elwell, W. A., & Comfort, P. W. (2001). In Tyndale Bible dictionary (pp. 630–631). Tyndale House Publishers.
[3] R. D. Drumm et al., “Intimate partner violence in a conservative Christian denomination: Prevalence and types, Social Work & Christianity 33, no. 3 (2006): 233–51;

1. Tjaden and N. Thonnes, Full Report of the Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence against Women Research Report: Findings from the National Violence against Women Survey (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, November 2000);
2. L. Coker et al., “Frequency and correlates of intimate partner violence by type: Physical, sexual, and psychological battering,” American Journal of Public Health 90, no. 4 (2000): 553–59;
3. Schaefer, R. Caetano, and C. L. Clark, “Rates of intimate partner violence in the United States,” American Journal of Public Health 88, no. 11 (1998): 1702–4.

[3] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance—United States, 2007,” Surveillance Summaries 58, no. SS-4 (June 6, 2008).
[3] Drug and Alcohol Dependence 74, no. 3 (June 11, 2004), 223–34.
[3] “Christian Views on Alcohol,” Barna, December 22, 2013, https://www.barna.com/research/christian-views-on-alcohol/.
[3] Dein, S., Religion and Mental Health: A Critical Appraisal of the Literature. WCPRR June 2014: 42-46.  https://www.wcprr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/2014.02.42-46.pdf  Park, J., et al., The Relationship Between Religion and Mental Disorders in a Korean Population. Psychiatry Investig. 2012 Mar; 9(1): 29–35. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3285738/
[3] “New Research Explores the Changing Shape of Temptation,” Barna, January 25, 2013, https://www.barna.com/research/new-research-explores-the-changing-shape-of-temptation/..
[3] Pornography Addiction Survey (conducted by Barna Group), Proven Men, 2014, available at www.provenmen.org/2014pornsurvey/pornography-use-and-addiction.
[3] Boz Tchividjian, “Startling Statistics: Child Sexual Abuse and What the Church Can Begin Doing about It,” Religion News Service, January 9, 2014, http://boz.religionnews.com/2014/01/09/startling-statistics/.

How Jesus Our Substitute Cleanses Our Spirit

In our last blog, we explored Salvation and the Cleansing of Our Spirit—how we are sanctified in spirit, mind, and body (1 Thessalonians 5:23). We discussed how our spirit is our life energy, received from God, that invigorates and motivates us to action, and that our spirit can be either purified by the indwelling Holy Spirit or remain corrupted and defiled by our rejection of God and choosing that which is evil.

We also discussed that the Holy Spirit cleanses our spirit by taking what Christ achieved and reproducing it in us. When we surrender our hearts to Jesus, our spirits are united with His, His love casts out our fear, and we receive a new spiritual temperament invigorating us and motivating our lives. From Jesus, we receive a spirit of love, trust, loyalty, self-sacrifice, kindness, mercy, gentleness, and self-control.

In this blog, we want to examine how Jesus’ vicarious, self-sacrificial, substitutionary death provides for our salvation, for our redemption, rebirth, and cleansing from sin.

Let me be explicitly clear on this point: No human being could be saved from sin without the substitutionary sinless life and sacrificial death of Jesus.

I believe that Jesus became a real human and voluntarily put Himself into a position that was not naturally His own for the purpose of delivering us from the position that was naturally our own; that is, He took our place. He substituted Himself. We should never deny this—for it is eternally true!

The question is: Why was His death required to save us?

Becoming the Righteousness of God

My view is that Christ’s death was to accomplish what the apostle Paul described:

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21 NIV84, emphasis mine).

According to this passage, the reason for Christ’s substitutionary sacrificial death was not a legal one; it was not for a penal reason. It was not a payment. It was also not to assuage God’s wrath or propitiate His anger, for God was never our problem. God has always been for us (Romans 8:31); God was in Jesus reconciling the world to Himself (2 Corinthians 5:19). God was not changed by Adam’s sin, nor did His law change. Rather, it was the condition of Adam that changed from sinless, loyal, faithful, and trustworthy to sinful, disloyal, unfaithful, and untrustworthy; he became a fear-ridden and selfish being. Adam no longer had a pure heart and right spirit!

Thus, Jesus became our human substitute, taking up the humanity that had been damaged by Adam, so that we might become the righteousness of God, so that humanity might be cleansed from sin and restored to His perfect ideal.

But why is it that Christ’s substitutionary death was required for us to become righteous? Why was Christ’s death necessary to save humans from sin? How did Christ’s voluntary and substitutionary sacrifice achieve the righteousness of God in humanity?

After all, if God is love and He loves the world so much that He sent His Son (John 3:16), if God is merciful—full of mercy (Deuteronomy 4:31), pardons freely (Isaiah 55:7), and does not keep a record of our wrongs (1 Corinthians 13:5)—then why couldn’t He just forgive us outright without the death of Jesus?

First, God did forgive us outright! It was His love and forgiveness that sent His Son to do what was necessary to save us.

But God’s forgiveness, extended freely from His loving heart, does not remove sinfulness from us! And salvation is something more than forgiveness—it is healing! Salvation requires that sinfulness, fear and selfishness, in us be replaced with sinlessness, love and trust, resulting in righteousness, purity, and holiness.

Thus, as John the Baptist said, Jesus is “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29 NIV84, emphasis mine). Jesus came to take away sin, to destroy death (2 Timothy 1:10) and the cause of death (Hebrews 2:14), thereby healing this creation. And the fear and selfishness, which is the corrupting, elemental aspect of sin infecting, tainting, polluting, and decaying our spirits (hearts) and souls (minds), must be purged, removed, destroyed, eliminated, cleansed from humanity.

Jesus had to provide the truth to free our minds from the lies of Satan—in order to win us (morally influence) to trust in Him—but He also needed to provide, in order to save the human species created in Eden, a cleansed, purified, renewed, and perfected human spirit (life, heart, motivational energy) that we receive through our trust in Him.

When Adam sinned, he corrupted himself, infecting his life with sin. His spirit (life, heart, motivational energy) became contaminated with fear and selfishness; his energizing motives to action were no longer love-driven selflessness but were fear-driven selfishness, the survival-of-the-fittest instinct.

And every human being is an offspring, outgrowth, extension of that same life (spirit)!

We are all born infected with sinfulness, with fear and selfishness, with unholiness (Psalm 51:5). In order to save us from this terminal sinful condition, Jesus had to not only restore our trust in God by a revelation of truth, but He also had to purge, cleanse, remove, eliminate, eradicate, destroy the sinfulness (fear and selfishness) from humanity.

And in order to do that, Jesus had to partake of the humanity, of the very life (spirit) given to Adam in Eden, that Adam had corrupted and to purify that life.

Humanity as a Family

God can create new species any time He wants.

After Adam sinned, God was free to gather up some dirt, form a new body, breathe the breath of life into that body, and create a new sinless human being—but such a being would not be part of the creation He had made in Eden. It would not have been related to Adam and Eve but would have been a new, similar, yet distinct creation. Creating a brand-new human would not save Adam, Eve, and their descendants from their terminal sin condition; it would not save the creation God had made in Eden. It would not purify the life given to Adam.

When God made Adam, He breathed into him the breath of life—or life-energy—and every other human being has received life from that same breath of life given to Adam. Eve was not formed out of dirt, and she did not receive her own breath of life. Instead, she was formed from the living tissue of Adam’s body, tissue that was already alive—an extension of that same breath of life (life-energy) that God breathed into Adam.

The Greek (pneuma) and Hebrew (ruwach) words for “breath” are the same words translated as “spirit.” The life-giving energy from God was given to Adam pure, holy, undefiled, with the resonance, aura, quality, character, and motivation to love. The breath, the spirit, is the internal motivational energy that both animates and invigorates all of us. Adam came to life in Eden with a spirit of purity, holiness, and love. His natural desires and motives were perfectly in harmony with God and heaven. And Adam was capable, in his own God-given human strength and ability, of saying no to temptation and, in his unfallen state, developing a mature, holy, and righteous character, thus settling his spirit into eternal purity and loyalty to God.

Adam and Eve were supposed to develop a mature and holy character at the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. It was at that tree that they were to exercise their God-given abilities to think, reason, and choose for themselves. At that tree, they were to choose either to know, by experience, love, trust, loyalty, faithfulness, righteousness—thus solidifying themselves in holiness and retaining a pure spirit, a sinless life—or they would choose to believe Satan’s lies and break trust with God and thereby know, in experience, in their being, fear, selfishness, distrust, guilt, shame, and evil—thus, corrupting their spirits, their lives, the breath of life that God animated them with and gave to them.

Because God gave Adam and Eve procreative abilities, that same “life” breathed into Adam is shared with every single human being. We are extensions of Adam, and the sad reality is that Adam altered the quality of that life-energy. His sin changed the motivational energy from pure love to a life contaminated with fear and selfishness, and we are all born with this motivational drive of fear and selfishness, with the spirit of fear. And such a spirit (life) is out of harmony with God and heaven. Fear causes selfishness, which is the opposite of love; it is out of harmony with God and His design for life and results in ruin and death (Romans 6:23; James 1:15; Galatians 6:8).

Jesus and the Human Family

So, what was needed to save humanity from this terminal sin condition?

A human being who is part of Adam, part of this creation, a human being who partakes of that same life, that same spirit or life-energy, that was breathed into Adam in Eden, that life which is now infected with fear and selfishness, and who then overcomes and eradicates the contamination and purifies that life, thereby destroying the terminal condition, purging the fear and selfishness, and restoring God’s perfect, pure, undefiled love back into this human creation, by perfecting/cleansing the spirit—the life given to Adam and shared by all of us.

Thus, Jesus came as the second Adam, partaking of the very same life that was given to Adam and passed down through David (Romans 1:3; Hebrews 2:14). He received His human life through His mother Mary—a humanity, life, that has been damaged by sin, infected with fear and selfishness, and terminal because of Adam’s fall (Galatians 4:4). Jesus’ human lineage through Mary is how He was able to be tempted in every way just like we are (Hebrews 4:15), and we are tempted by our own evil desires (James 1:14). Jesus’ humanity, life, received from Adam was capable of tempting Him with fear and selfishness, which was revealed in Gethsemane when He suffered terrible human emotions and anguish tempting Him to act in self-interest and not go to the cross.

But because the Father of Jesus’ humanity is the Holy Spirit (Matthew 1:18–20), Jesus was also born with, invigorated with, a pure, undefiled spiritual life-energy. As a real human being, partaking of the life passed down from Adam and the life given by the Holy Spirit, Jesus was able to face temptation and use only His human abilities to say no to every temptation coming from the infection in the human spirit (life) he received from Adam and yes to God and live a holy, pure life (Hebrews 4:15) in harmony with the Holy Spirit. (We receive that same ability to choose to live in harmony with God at conversion when we are reborn with a new heart and right spirit—when we receive the new life/spirit—by the indwelling Holy Spirit.)

And on the cross, Jesus chose only the pure life, the pure energy of love, that He received from the Holy Spirit and, thereby, destroyed the death-causing infection, the impure corrupting quality, character, inclination, motivation of fear and selfishness contaminating the life-energy breathed into Adam (2 Timothy 1:10). At the cross, Jesus destroyed the carnal terminal sin nature and arose in a purified humanity and became the new head of humanity (Hebrews 5:9), and He now stands in God’s presence, not only in His pre-incarnate position as the Son of God but also as the representative head of humanity—Jesus, a real human being, sinless and perfect. He stands in the heavenly counsel as Adam’s substitute, fulfilling the role that God had originally designed for Adam.

Now through faith, each one of us can receive that same pure, divine life-giving energy (spirit—life) via the indwelling Holy Spirit, who takes what Christ achieved and reproduces it in us, invigorating us with a reborn new spirit. Christ is the vine and we are the branches (John 15:5), who, being grafted into Christ by faith, receive the new invigorating spirit (life) from Him through the indwelling Holy Spirit. We die to the old spirit of fear and selfishness and live a new life with a new spirit of love and trust. As Paul wrote,

For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves [no longer live the life of selfishness] but for him who died for them and was raised again (2 Corinthians 5:14, 15 NIV84, emphasis mine).

We, with our new life, our new spirit, our new purified spiritual energy are motivated, animated, compelled with new desires, attitudes, and priorities so that we become literal partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). As our spirits, our internal life-energy, our motives, drives, desires now come from Jesus and no longer come from what we inherited from Adam, we grow daily in godliness and, despite ongoing temptations from our old habits and conditioned responses, our renewed reborn spirits are no longer captive to fear and selfishness. As Paul wrote,

For God has not given us a spirit of fear [that we inherited from Adam], but of power and of love and of a sound mind [that we receive by faith/trust from Jesus] (2 Timothy 1:7 NKJV).

We are literally changing from a life, spirit, of fear and selfishness to a life, spirit, of love and trust via the indwelling Holy Spirit.

And this is possible only because Jesus, as our human substitute, took up humanity infected with fear and selfishness by Adam and purified that life. Jesus revealed the truth to win us to trust, and He provides us with a new spirit, a new life, sinless and pure.

Thank You, Jesus!

So I encourage you, if you already haven’t done so, to open your heart and invite Jesus in, to ask for the cleansing and washing by the Holy Spirit to purify your spirit, to renew you with new desires and motives, to invigorate you with love for God and your fellow man, to partake of the divine nature, a new, purified, Christlike spirit of love and trust!

The apostle Paul wrote,

May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Thessalonians 5:23 NIV84).

Is it just a coincidence that Paul lists these three domains—spirit, soul, and body—in the order he does, or is it inspired? Does it reveal that healing starts with the spirit, moves to the soul, and ends with the body?

The Greek word translated as “body” is soma and refers to the physical structure of our being, which is the easiest for us to identify and differentiate from soul and spirit. The Bible is filled with many instructions for the health of the body—guidance on hygiene, diet, exercise, and rest. If we use the metaphor of a computer, the soma would correspond to the hardware, the physical components of the machine that one can touch.

The Greek word for “soul” is psyche, from which we get words like “psychiatry” and “psychology”, and refers to our individuality, character, unique personhood; the psyche would correspond to the software on a computer, encompassing all the things we learn, such as our language, and what we hold to be true, our values, morals, and beliefs—thus, it is our mind.

The Greek word for “spirit” is pneuma and is translated into a variety of English words, such as wind, spirit, ghost, and breath—as in the “breath of life.” The spirit, breath of life, corresponds to the energy of our being and, first and foremost, is the life-giving energy from God.

The LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground [body] and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life [spirit], and the man became a living being (Genesis 2:7 NIV84).

When a person dies, God’s creation reverses this process; the body goes back to dirt and the breath of life, the life energy from God, the “spirit,” returns to God:

The dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it (Ecclesiastes 12:7 NIV84)

The word “spirit” here is used to indicate the breath of life, the life energy. But the word has additional meanings that Paul applies when writing to the Corinthians:

Even though I am not physically present, I am with you in spirit … when you are assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present (1 Corinthians 5:3, 4 NIV84).

Our spirit, as Paul uses the term above, refers to our affections, attitudes of the heart, and true motives of action, and it is where God works via His Spirit to cause us to be dissatisfied with sin, to give us a longing for something more, to create a conviction, an uneasy restlessness, when we are departing from Him and His path for our lives. The spirit is our innermost heart’s desires, preferences, and alignments—what we resonate with and also the attitudinal atmosphere we both create and prefer. Do we have a spirit of love or hate, of kindness or cruelty, of humility or arrogance, of gentleness or brutality, of fear or courage?

Think about your closest loved one, perhaps a child or spouse, going on a dangerous trip, perhaps to a war zone, and, with tears, you say to them, “I will be with you in spirit.” What do you mean? Are you saying you will go along with them bodily, in person? No, you will not be with them physically when you are with them in spirit. Are you saying that you are going to have an out-of-body experience and float alongside them in some ghost-like apparition? Of course not.

You are saying that you will be with them in heart, sympathy, compassion, attitude, desiring for their good, sharing in their struggles and hurts, rejoicing in their triumphs, celebrating their success, keeping their health, welfare, and good foremost in your affections and prayers. You have your heart’s energies oriented toward them for their good. To be with your child in spirit is to be in harmony with them in your inmost being, resonating and connecting with them along unseen energy bonds of the quantum universe that God has created. It is the alignment of one’s heart, affection, goodwill, and intentions for another’s health and happiness.

The way God created human beings, after Adam received the “spirit,” the breath of life, from his Creator, he had the ability to impact and shape, change, alter, and influence the tenor, vibration, character, condition, quality, and purity of that energy. Just as we can contaminate pure water and make it foul, so also we can contaminate the pure energy we receive from God. In fact, through Adam’s sin, he contaminated the pure motivation and animating energy of love with fear and selfishness, and we are all born with a life, a spirit, that we received from Adam that is already contaminated with fear and selfishness that need spiritual cleansing (Psalm 51:5). This is what Paul is telling us when he informs us that our entire being needs sanctifying—our motivational energies (spirits, pneuma) need to be sanctified.

How Salvation Actually Works

But what does this mean in practical terms? It means that salvation requires cleansing of the spirit from the contamination of sin (fear and selfishness). Salvation—cleansing, the removal of sin—starts with our spirits (pneuma), moves into our souls/minds (psyche), and ends with our bodies (soma) at the Second Coming.

In order to intelligently cooperate most effectively with God for the cleansing of our spirits, we must understand what our spirit is. The spirit is the part of our being that connects with the Spirit of God and is the means whereby God inspires, energizes, encourages, motivates, and convicts us. Our spirit is where the healing energy of God interacts with our energy, (inmost desires and motivations) to influence us. The Spirit is the vitalizing power of God that brings life.

Jesus said, “The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing” (John 6:63 NIV84).

The spirit is the wellspring, the energy source, the life-giving power that fuels our being—it is the breath of life given to us by God, but the Holy Spirit is the sustaining, healing, purifying, invigorating, inspiring, transforming, renewing, regenerating power of God that cleanses our spirits, enlightens our minds, inspires our songs, motivates our hearts, cleanses our consciences, ennobles our minds, and seals us to God’s kingdom of love.

And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory (Ephesians 1:13, 14 NIV84).

It is the Holy Spirit that brings us the new healthy desires, motives, and presence of Jesus. It is via the Holy Spirit that we become partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). But when the Spirit moves upon our hearts, our inmost beings, we must choose to say “yes” to the leading of the Spirit—to forgive, to reject the old carnal ways of dishonesty, selfishness, evil surmising, gossiping, jealousy, revenge—and, instead, align our hearts with the “Spirit,” the attitude of Jesus Himself—to love our enemies and bless those who persecute us.

Jesus said to His disciples, when they asked if they should call fire down on the Samaritans,

“You do not know what manner of spirit you are of. For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them” (Luke 9:55-56 NKJV, emphasis mine).

The disciples were fostering a spirit of God’s enemy, of revenge rather than a spirit of love and grace. They needed spiritual cleansing!

While the Holy Spirit brings us the truth, love, and conviction, it is up to us to accept or reject the cleansing energies of God’s Spirit; if, instead of having our spirits cleansed, we cling to resentment, bitterness, unforgiveness, unkindness, jealously, a desire for revenge etc., we grieve the Spirit (Ephesians 4:30).

But as we respond to the movements of the Holy Spirit upon our spirit, we move from merely being kept physically alive and sought after by the Holy Spirit, like the shepherd seeking the lost sheep, to actual thriving! When we choose to stay connected to God in a living faith/trust relationship, we experience the vitalizing power of God purifying our spirits. When we surrender our hearts and minds to Jesus in faith, it is then that we receive the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, who renews our spirits, transforms our motives, desires, hearts, and attitudes, and purifies our inmost being with love, joy, hope, and truth by taking what Jesus achieved and reproducing His spirit in us. As Paul wrote, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20 NIV84).

But if we do not remain in a living faith/trust relationship with God—if, instead, we go our own way and do our own thing after our conversion—that would be like tying a plastic bag over our heads and cutting ourselves off from life-giving refreshing air. If we cut ourselves off from the Holy Spirit, we only breathe back into our souls the spiritual waste, fears, uncertainties, guilt, shame, doubts, mistakes, misunderstandings, shortcomings, denials, rationalizations, heartaches, hurts, disappointments, and wrongs. Our spirits will then slowly lose the heavenly atmosphere of joy, peace, patience, love, and hope. Just like the air inside the plastic bag becomes stale, so our spirits become stale, stagnant—and just like what happens when we breathe in the stale air, our spirits eventually lose energy and drive, and we become discouraged and are tempted to give up.

But when we retain our life-giving faith connection with God, our daily communion with Him, then we daily breathe in God’s Spirit and are filled with the presence of God, His life, His energy, His love, His affection, kindness, goodness, grace, truth, and power. 

Our spirit is our life energy. God’s Spirit is the full energy of the divine third Person of the Godhead who unites with us with the full power of the Godhead, bringing us the “Spirit” of the Lord—the new attitude of love rather than hate. As Paul wrote to Timothy,

For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7 NKJV).

I encourage you to be purposeful in your daily routines, to start every day in personal communion with God, meditating upon His Word, His creation, His providences, and talking with Him. Invite the Holy Spirit into your heart to cleanse, renew, refresh, and invigorate your spirit so that you will experience “the fruit of the Spirit [which] is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Galatians 5:22, 23 NIV84).

And as Paul wrote to the Philippians, I close with this desire for you:

If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose (Philippians 2:1, 2 NIV84).

Recently, I read the following in a Bible study guide:

The Lord’s judgment is closely related to the sanctuary. The sanctuary was the environment where the psalmist’s understanding of the problem of evil was transformed (Ps. 73:17-20). The sanctuary was designated as the place of divine judgment as indicated by the judgment of Urim (Num. 27:21) and by the breastplate of judgment of the high priest (Exod. 28:15, 28-30). Accordingly, many psalms depict God on His throne in the sanctuary ready to judge the world for its sin and evil.[1]

When you hear descriptions like this, what comes to mind? Do you think something legal, something judicial, something about investigating sins and determining guilt or innocence, and then appropriate punishments?

If this is how you conceive of judgment, then you are thinking in human legal terms, within the confines of this fallen world, applying the meaning of how human law functions, assuming that God’s laws function like human laws and that judgment is the rulings of a magistrate or judge to determine some legal finding. The Bible study guide seems to be promoting this very fallen, humanly sinful, worldly way of thinking about judgment—the judgment type of the kingdoms of this world.

But Jesus said His kingdom was not of this world; if it were, then His followers would fight like the world does (John 18:36).

However, the study guide does use a Bible text to support its assertions, pointing us to Exodus 28:15 and 30, which reads:

You shall make the breastplate of judgment. … And you shall put in the breastplate of judgment the Urim and the Thummim, and they shall be over Aaron’s heart when he goes in before the LORD. So Aaron shall bear the judgment of the children of Israel over his heart before the LORD continually (NKJV, emphasis mine).

But does the word “judgment” in this context—that is, the sanctuary—the breastplate, and the Urim and Thummim mean legal and judicial rulings of guilt and innocence? Or does it mean discernment, assessment of what is right or wrong, determining what is best, diagnosing the problem and prescribing the solution, and discrimination of the best of a variety of options, of wise decision-making? 

In fact, the use of the term “judgment” here means the exercise of discernment—wise decision-making. Urim and Thummim were not used judicially! They were used to discern the will of God, and many other Bible versions translate it in this way:

You are to make a breastpiece for use in making decisions. … You are to put the Urim and the Thummim into the breastpiece of decision; and they are to be over Aaron’s heart when he goes in before the LORD. Aaron is to bear the decisions of the Israelites over his heart before the LORD continually (NET, emphasis mine).

Furthermore, the NET commentary on these verses reads:

The Urim and the Thummim were two objects intended for determining the divine will … or “judgment” (KJV, ASV, NASB, NRSV). The term is מִשְׁפָּט (mishpat), the same word that describes the breastpiece that held the two objects. Here it is translated “decisions” since the Urim and Thummim contained in the breastpiece represented the means by which the LORD made decisions for the Israelites. The high priest bore the responsibility of discerning the divine will on matters of national importance.[2]

Here is commentary about Urim and Thummim from the book Patriarchs and Prophets:

At the right and left of the breastplate were two large stones of great brilliancy. These were known as the Urim and Thummim. By them the will of God was made known through the high priest. When questions were brought for decision before the Lord, a halo of light encircling the precious stone at the right was a token of the divine consent or approval, while a cloud shadowing the stone at the left was an evidence of denial or disapprobation (p. 351, emphasis mine).

So, the idea that the high priest was acting in a judicial manner is not supported by the breastplate and Urim and Thummim, but instead, the sanctuary was a place to discern God’s will, a place to learn wisdom, to find answers and make decisions.

Such an understanding is exactly what we expect when we worship God as Creator and understand His laws are design laws—the protocols life is built to operate upon. God is the builder and sustainer of reality, and as such, life, health, and happiness always occur in harmony with Him and His designs. Thus, we would anticipate that godly judgment is godly wisdom, discernment, the ability to tell the right from the wrong and choose the healthiest and holiest course.

This idea of humans having some cosmic external legal problem is a lie; it is from believing the lie that God’s law functions like human law and then teaching that God functions no differently than a creature, making up rules and using power to punish rule-breakers. That is Satan’s goal—to unseat God from the throne of our hearts and minds by getting us to worship a being who is functionally no different than a creature.

And when we understand design law, we understand the true purpose of the Old Testament sanctuary—to teach the plan of salvation, which is the plan to heal and restore God’s creation back into at-one-ment with Him by removing from them the defilement of sin, by making them pure and holy again.

If you would like to learn more about the symbolism of the Old Testament sanctuary, how it teaches God’s plan to heal and restore, and see that it contains nothing from a human-law perspective, check out our seminar The Sanctuary and Feast Days.

[1] Adult SS Guide 1st Q 2024, Psalms, p. 49.

[2] Biblical Studies Press. (2005). The NET Bible First Edition; Bible. English. NET Bible.; The NET Bible. Biblical Studies Press.

Have you ever read Psalm 137:8, 9 and wondered how it could have possibly been inspired by God?

O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy is he who repays you for what you have done to us—he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks (Psalm 137:7–9 NIV84).

Do you struggle with this passage? Or do you take it just as it reads and think, “If the Bible says it, I believe it, and that’s all there is to it”?

These verses are the culmination of a short psalm that laments Israel’s captivity in Babylon; the psalm concludes with what appears to be a very human, worldly response to injustice—retaliation against the enemy. But is this what the Holy Spirit actually inspired the psalmist to write, or did something get confused in the translation?

If you check other translations, you will get very similar renderings, and that is because the language does allow for this particular interpretation. But is it the most accurate to the true intention of what God inspired to be written?

Understanding Bible Translation

How do you understand inspiration works?

My view is that God inspires the Bible writer with divine truths but leaves the human writer free to choose the words that express that truth. Thus, accurate Bible translation is primarily about bringing the meaning across, not the word-for-word translation, especially if the new language word means something different than the old language word intended. And to bring across the most accurate meaning, one needs to understand the truth about God’s character, His design law, the nature of sin, and God’s solution for the sin problem.

The most common distortion I have seen in Bible translation is when the translators believe that God’s law functions like human law—imposed rules requiring God to use His power to inflict punishment for sin—rather than understanding God as Creator, who built reality, and His laws are the laws that reality functions upon, what I call design laws. When one translates through the belief that God’s laws are like the laws creatures make up, then one, in innocence and with sincere motive, brings legal distortions into the text, ideas such as justice means retaliation or infliction of punishment.

But God inspired the Bible writers to write truths necessary for our salvation—truths about Him and the outworking of His plan to save us:

“For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us” (Romans 15:4 NIV84).

“These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come” (1 Corinthians 10:11 NIV84).

This means that the true-life, historical events recorded in Scripture also contain deeper spiritual truths to teach us the plan of salvation. You can read about some of these deeper lessons woven into the story of real historical people in these blogs:

• Joseph: A Foreshadow of Christ
• Samson: A Foreshadow of Christ
• Elisha and the Shunammite’s Son—An Object Lesson About Christ

In fact, the 12 tribes of Israel acted out in theater the plan of salvation through the sanctuary system. You can learn about this in our three-part video series The Sanctuary and Feast Days Seminar.

The purpose of the Bible is not simply to be a history book; it also uses that history to teach the truth about God and the plan of salvation. It is God’s divine revelation to us of the reality of life beyond this earth and where we fit into His cosmic plan.

Comparing Translations

With these thoughts in mind, The Remedy paraphrase expands the meaning from merely the literal historical people who were held captive in the historical kingdom of Babylon to include the spiritual object lesson that both ancient Israel and Babylon represent: God’s people enslaved by Satan’s kingdom of fear and selfishness that operates upon imposed human law (Babylon), a legal justice system of inflicted penalties, that stands in contrast to God’s kingdom, which Jesus said is within you (Luke 17:21)—the kingdom of spiritual health and wellness. Thus, The Remedy (REM) immediately draws the mind to consider the deeper lessons that the historical events in the Old Testament were recorded to teach us and, therefore, leads us to a reality-based understanding of this difficult passage.

So, let’s compare these two versions of Psalm 137:

NIV84: “By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion” (v. 1).

REM: “By the rivers of Babylon, as captives in this selfish world, we wept when we remembered Zion—God’s fortress of spiritual health and wellness” (v. 1).

Babylon is not only an ancient kingdom that enslaved the Israelites; it is also a symbol of the powers of Satan that enslave the people of God throughout history. In Revelation, God sends an end-time message that His people are to come out of Babylon (14:8; 18:2–4). I believe that Psalm 137 is meant to inspire us to look beyond just the historical to the actual larger conflict between God and Satan for every human soul.

Let’s look at the next passage from Psalm 137:

NIV84: “There on the poplars we hung our harps, for there our captors asked us for songs, our tormentors demanded songs of joy; they said, ‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’ How can we sing the songs of the LORD while in a foreign land?” (vv. 2–4).

REM: “There on the willows we hung our harps while our captors told us to sing: they demanded songs of happiness and joy; they said, ‘Sing us a song of health about Zion!’ How can our lives be songs revealing God’s character of love while our hearts are held captive to this selfish world?” (vv. 2–4).

The Remedy again expands the meaning beyond the historical people in the land of Babylon to the larger meaning, such that the song is not merely a tune that is sung from the mouth, but that the song is also the melody of our lives—that our lives are to be songs of truth and love that harmonize with God’s kingdom of truth and love.

But how can our lives be songs that resonate truth and love if our hearts are held captive to this selfish world? This introduces the reality that, while we are in the world, we are not to be of the world (John 17:14–16). Even if we end up imprisoned by the powers of this world, like Jesus and so many of His faithful followers throughout history were, the evil powers of this world cannot imprison our hearts and minds without our consent. The only way we can have lives that are songs of truth and love to God is by having our hearts circumcised by the Holy Spirit (Romans 2:29), hearts set free from the captivity to the fear and selfishness of this world.

NIV84: “If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill. May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not consider Jerusalem my highest joy” (vv. 5, 6).

REM: “If I forget the truth about you, O Jerusalem—the center of God’s healing plan—may I write no more music. May I sing no more songs, if they are not about you; if they do not teach God’s healing plan centered in you, O Jerusalem, as my highest joy” (vv. 5, 6).

Here the psalmist makes it clear that he would rather be silent than use his talent to misrepresent God. This is also our prayer at Come and Reason Ministries! We pray that we will only say of God what is right, that our classes, presentations, publications, and programs will constantly improve and refine our ability to give ever more clear presentations about God, to advance and grow in truth, to eliminate any remnants of misunderstanding and falsehood that we have believed or taught. We would rather be silent than teach things about God that are not true!

And now, the final three verses of Psalm 137, ones that have been very difficult for people to understand and explain:

NIV84: “Remember, O LORD, what the Edomites did on the day Jerusalem fell. ‘Tear it down,’ they cried, ‘tear it down to its foundations!’ O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy is he who repays you for what you have done to us—he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks” (vv. 7–9).

Do you think that this is true just as it reads? Do you think that one can find true, genuine, godly happiness by killing the babies of one’s enemies? So, on its face, this version isn’t translated in a way that, if taken as it reads, communicates truth.

Some scholars have understood this to be a psalm that, rather than communicating the truth of how reality works, the true way to find happiness, instead communicates the struggles of the psalmist—his anger, temptations, and carnal desires for vengeance—and models going to God in prayer where, in conversation with God, his worldly emotions are worked out. This principle of going to God with our anger and ungodly desires and talking with Him for heart change is absolutely a healthy action to take, and the psalmist does this in many other places (Psalm 13; 69), yet in those psalms, the psalmist always ends with verses about turning to God, that salvation is found in going to God.

But Psalm 137 ends with happiness being found in killing babies, not going to God. Therefore, I do not believe this psalm is about going to God with our distress and honest desire to kill babies and working out our earthly desires with God, because the psalm doesn’t write about doing that in this passage. While I think it is right to go to God with one’s frustrations, anger, and desire for vengeance and work it out with God, I do not think this psalm was written to model that, because I think it is a poetic description, inspired by the Holy Spirit, of what brings true happiness in the plan of salvation. This is how I render it in The Remedy:

“Remember, O Lord, what the Edomites did the day Jerusalem—your spiritual treatment center—fell? They shouted, ‘Tear it down, tear it down to the ground!’ O people of Babylon, who cling to selfishness, you are doomed to destruction! Happy are those who are finished with you, just as you deserve; who have weaned themselves from you. Happy are they who take your children to fall upon the Rock and be broken” (vv. 7–9).

Do you see the difference in this rendering from the traditional one? Can you see two different laws being applied—the imposed law in the NIV and design law in The Remedy? Which is most consistent with the plan of salvation? What is it that God is trying to do to sinners—destroy them or turn them from enemies into friends by bringing them to Jesus, the Rock of our Salvation, and have us fall upon Him to have our fear, selfishness, guilt, shame, and sinfulness broken up so we can be reborn in righteousness? And what brings genuine happiness? Isn’t it when we turn our enemies into our friends by bringing them to Jesus and having them experience salvation and heart transformation?

If you would like to explore more of The Remedy paraphrase, you can click this link to read it online; download the free app in the Apple store for Apple devices or the Google store for your Android devices; or if you would like a print version, copies of The Remedy New Testament and The Remedy of the Lord in Song: the Psalms can be ordered on Amazon.

Anxiety is to the mind what pain is to the body—it is a signal that something is wrong.

If you experience pain somewhere in your body, your first thought is not, “I have a pain disorder and, therefore, I need pain medication.” No, your first thought is, “What’s wrong?”

Pain causes one to evaluate the cause of the pain—is it a thorn, a cavity, a blister, a fracture, a sprain, an abrasion, a cramp, a heart attack, or something else? Pain is designed to signal us when something isn’t functioning as it should so that we can address the problem quickly, remove the offending source, and prevent more serious injury. And when the cause of the pain is addressed and healing takes place, the pain resolves.

Anxiety serves the same purpose; it alerts us that something is wrong so that we can address the underlying problem, minimize injury, and experience healing. And just as pain can have an almost infinite number of causes, so can anxiety. Causes of anxiety can be physiological—such as hyperthyroidism; relational—a divorce or breakup; existential—the death of a loved one; psychological—negative patterns of thinking, such as false beliefs like “I’m no good; no one will ever love me;” emotional—dysfunctional attachments; spiritual—unresolved guilt and shame or failure to trust God with the unknown (future, outcomes, etc.); situational—pending punishment or objective threats; conditioned responses—learned reactions from previous anxiety-provoking experiences and unresolved trauma.

Anxiety, like pain, not only alerts us that something is wrong, but it also motivates us to action, to do something to resolve the anxiety. With physical pain, the most common initial reaction is to seek to identify the cause and resolve it, but with anxiety, people often take another path. Instead of standing firm, tolerating the anxiety, and seeking to identify and resolve its source, far too often, people seek only symptom relief—through medication, alcohol, marijuana, drugs, comfort foods, entertainment, pleasure-seeking of various kinds, thrill-seeking, offloading the anxiety onto others, comfort in the arms of others, denial and distortion, hyper-scrupulosity, religiosity, the pursuit of control (especially over others), rule-keeping, and more.

The choice to medicate away anxiety instead of resolving its core cause has been markedly worsened by the corporation of medicine (healthcare as a for-profit industry) and the influence of big pharma, which has led to a distorted philosophy that psychological, relational, spiritual, and existential issues can be effectively treated with a pill. This has created a generation of people on drugs to manage symptoms of anxiety rather than recognizing the anxiety as an adaptive signal intended to motivate them to address the underlying cause and resolve it, and thereby not only heal the problem but also gain mental and emotional coping skills, to mature and develop through overcoming and resolving various life problems.

The Bible teaches,

We also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope (Romans 5:3, 4 NIV84).

Not only do millions seek to avoid the cause of their anxiety, but far too many healthcare practitioners have been trained by a misguided medical education system—not only misguided by the for-profit motive, but also by the godless evolutionary philosophy that misinterprets the meaning of most things, denies the existence of God, thereby cutting people off from spiritual and biblical solutions, which magnifies the anxiety and leaves people with the false belief that the only option is pharmaceutical—to diagnose people struggling with anxiety with a disorder and then prescribe a medication to treat the symptom of anxiety rather than seeking to identify and understand the cause of the anxiety and resolve it.

In other words, modern medicine teaches healthcare practitioners to see anxiety as a disorder in itself rather than a symptom of something else.

But this would be like treating a pneumonia patient who has fever, cough, and chills, with aspirin, a cough suppressant, and a blanket without ever treating the infection. Or it would be like treating someone with a cavity with pain medicine but never filling the cavity.

Yes, when people are in physical pain, there is a righteous use of pain medication. We can be thankful the dentist uses Novocain while he fills the cavity! But if the dentist only gave medicine to relieve the pain, the intervention would cause more damage by preventing the patient from realizing a pathological process was spreading, thereby delaying the identification and resolution of the offending cause.

Likewise, with anxiety, there are many times when medication is necessary to reduce the anxiety enough for the patient to be able to identify and address the cause. But when we label the symptom of anxiety as the disease and, instead of seeking to address its cause, we seek only to relieve the symptom (through alcohol, marijuana, food, pleasure-seeking, pharmaceuticals, etc.), the pathology causing the anxiety worsens and, rather than helping, we contribute to the dysfunction and worsening of the overall course.

The approach to anxiety that seeks only to relieve the symptoms interferes with development, maturity of character, autonomy, and self-sufficiency. People do not learn how to cope with the challenges of life and, when confronted with intense emotions of anxiety, instead of possessing the mental and emotional strength, skill, and ability to stand firm, work through the emotions, identify the cause, and make adaptive, intelligent, reasonable, and effective decisions, they seek “safe spaces” where they can avoid the feelings and pretend they are healthy.

Genuine healing requires we deal with reality—what is true, what is actually happening; thus, if we want to help people with anxiety, we must go beyond the symptom to identify the cause and seek to eliminate it. This is what we do at Honey Lake Clinic.

Honey Lake Clinic is a holistic residential treatment center in which we help people identify and resolve the underlying causes of their anxiety. We treat the whole person, mind, body, and spirit, with proven, reality-based interventions that help people experience restoration to wellness—to harmony with the laws of health, the protocols upon which life is built to exist and operate

So if you or someone you love is struggling with unremitting anxiety that is interfering with life and undermining health, if you have struggled to find solutions that bring healing, and you would like an intensive, Christ-centered holistic treatment program, consider Honey Lake Clinic as a therapeutic option.

The next time you experience anxiety, step back and ask, “What is the cause? What is the anxiety trying to alert me to? What is the problem that I need to address for the anxiety to go away?” Is it physical, psychological, relational, spiritual, or situational? And then seek God, His wisdom, methods, and principles, and pursue a path designed to resolve the cause, not just relieve the symptom.

Perhaps you remember singing the old hymn “Faith of our Fathers,” whose first stanza is:

Faith of our fathers, living still,
In spite of dungeon, fire, and sword;
Oh, how our hearts beat high with joy
Whene’er we hear that glorious Word!

Refrain:
Faith of our fathers, holy faith!
We will be true to thee till death (Frederick W. Faber, pub.1849).

I guess the meaning behind this song depends on who we identify as our fathers of faith—do we mean Abraham, the father of the faithful? He would be a good choice, as Paul says that all who have faith like Abraham are heirs of the promises to Abraham. Or do we mean others?

Recently, a listener emailed the following:

I was reading in the book The Great Controversy the chapter titled, Protest of the Princes. Starting on page 209 is described how Luther responded to the fear of the reformers.

“One of the principles most firmly maintained by Luther was that there should be no resort to secular power in support of the reformation, and no appeal to arms for its defense. … He declared that the doctrine of the gospel should be defended by God alone. … The least man meddled in the work, the more striking would be God’s intervention in its behalf.”

And here is where it gets powerful,

“All the politic precautions suggested were in his view attributable to unworthy fear and sinful mistrust.”

This got me to thinking about our current and end time situation in this country and on this earth. I’m wondering if you could write a blog connecting the faith of the reformers to the faith we need at the end time. I was struck again with the thought, “The battle is the Lord’s.” If we rest in this thought we have nothing to fear regarding the path of destruction our country is now engaged, the war in the Middle East, etc. A sense of peace came over me with this thought.

Thank you for your ministry and for Come and Reason. What a blessing it has been to me.

I want to thank this listener for the email; it really got me thinking! So many ideas were triggered here, such as:

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” (The Life of Reason by George Santayana).

“We have nothing to fear for the future, except as we shall forget the way the Lord has led us, and His teaching in our past history” (Christian Experience and Teaching, 204, E.G. White).

I immediately recognized the great value of learning from history, of studying the Reformation, of embracing the truths that the great Reformers discovered. I love their courage, their spirit of integrity, their longing to follow Jesus, their willingness to question, their refusal to bow to external pressure to violate their consciences, their deep study of Scripture, and their advancement in truth as they understood. Yes, all of these attributes are to be valued and emulated.

But does that mean we should rest satisfied with every belief that the Reformers developed—or should we, instead, embrace and apply the motives and godly principles they practiced? If we live out the principles of the Reformation, then we are people who study for ourselves, do not rest satisfied with tradition, do not allow others to tell us the answers, have a deep desire to know God personally, have a burning love for truth, and want to grow in truth. To that end, we recognize that God is infinite and we are finite, meaning there is always more truth to discover, apply, and grow in. So it would be a betrayal of the Reformers to rest satisfied with their understanding of things; to be like the Reformers, we must advance in truth as they did.

I am so thankful for Martin Luther and the other Reformers like Wycliffe, Tyndale, and Wesley—what incredible men used by God to advance the kingdom of heaven! But these godly people were human, meaning they did not know all things; they could only assimilate so much and advance so far in God’s infinite truth. For instance, Luther did not accept all 66 books of the Bible as inspired. He considered James, Jude, Hebrews, and Revelation to not be part of the canon of Scripture and placed them in the back of the Bible. Luther never accepted the war in heaven (Revelation 12:7). He struggled with finding harmony between faith and works. He never freed his mind of the Roman view of God’s law, and he invented penal-substitution theology to counter the Catholic doctrine of purgatory. There are many things that Luther didn’t get right—despite being used mightily by God to advance the movement back to God’s truth.

We have the privilege of learning what Luther discovered, but to be a true Reformer, we should never rest satisfied with what previous generations worked out, nor with our own current understanding; instead, the true Reformer develops a heart that loves to advance in the truth. We will be people who love to grow, discover, and move forward in new epiphanies, deeper comprehension, and closer intimacy with God, which occurs as we press forward in the knowledge of God, His kingdom, His design laws, methods, and principles.

Thus, we don’t always teach things the exact way the Reformers did because truth is unfolding. But while the truth is unfolding, the principles are the same. God’s character doesn’t change; His design laws do not change. Thus, we can embrace the attitude that Luther took toward the use of state powers to advance God’s kingdom and apply that principle to our day—we can never advance God’s cause by using Satan’s methods.

And Satan’s methods are the methods of force, coercion, imposed law, legal enforcement, politics, deceit, manipulation with fear, propaganda, and the power of the state. All the governments of this planet are Satan’s. Jesus said that His kingdom is not of this world. So, if we are true Reformers, if we are advancing in the truth with the spirit of the Reformation, then we will apply the same principles of God’s kingdom that inspired the Reformers—such as the principle of truth presented in love, while leaving others free.

When we see the principles of force, coercion, manipulation, deceit, misrepresentation, and other factors used to pressure people to violate their own conscience, we can be sure that such a movement is not inspired by the Spirit of God, and that no matter the cause—even to “save lives” or “save the planet”—such methods advance Satan’s kingdom, not God’s.

If you would like to read more about the advancing truth of the Reformation, we encourage you to check out our new magazine, The Lie That Deceived Angels, Infects Christianity, and Delays the Second Coming of Christ—and if you agree with us, then join us in taking the final message of mercy to the world to hasten the coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

The Bible says:

“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23 NIV84, emphasis mine).

“The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction” (Galatians 6:8 NIV84, emphasis mine).

“Sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death” (James 1:15 NIV84, emphasis mine).

These texts seem to make it clear that death is the direct result of sin, not an infliction by God, and the Bible says elsewhere that the power of death is Satan’s power, not God’s:

“Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil” (Hebrews 2:14 NIV84, emphasis mine).

Based on these texts, I recently called out an article published in the December 7, 2023, Adventist Review for stating the following:

To spare us, God poured out His wrath against the violation of His law (sin), not on the violators of His law (sinners) but on the sinless Jesus, the only way that God could “be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Rom. 3:26). In short, rather than killing us for violating His law, the Father killed Jesus instead. … Or, to put it crudely, the Father killed Jesus so that He wouldn’t have to kill us (Goldstein, C. “Law, Freedom, Love.” Adventist Review online edition, Dec 8, 2023, emphasis mine).

I asserted that the author is attributing to God the power of death, which the Bible says is actually a power of Satan. In other words, the author is describing God as using Satan’s power. I also observed that putting God in the role of death-bringer is the unavoidable result of people accepting the lie that God’s law functions like human law—a system of made-up rules that require external enforcement. When people believe God’s law is imposed like our laws are, they always conclude that justice means inflicting punishment and that the minimum punishment for sin is death, so they conclude God must inflict death to achieve justice. Furthermore, because Jesus came to be our substitutionary Savior, they teach that God killed the innocent Jesus in our place. It is very sad to see this, but this is what the one single lie about God’s law does.

Understanding Difficult Passages

If I am correct, that the power of death is the devil’s power and that God does not inflict death as punishment for sin, then what do we do with texts like this one?

“See now that I myself am He! There is no god besides me. I put to death and I bring to life, I have wounded and I will heal, and no one can deliver out of my hand” (Deuteronomy 32:39 NIV84).

Is the Bible contradicting itself? Does God use Satan’s power? Is God the source of life and death? Is death inflicted by God? Am I wrong about the Review article?

How we understand the Bible and all theological questions is directly determined by our understanding of how God’s law functions. If we believe that God’s law functions like human laws, imposed rules that require legal oversight and enforcement, then we conclude, like the Review article does, that God is the source of inflicted death as punishment for sin—and we will cite texts like Deuteronomy 32:39 to “prove” this false conclusion as true.

But when we return to design law, understanding that God is Creator and all His laws are the protocols that He built reality and life to operate upon—like the laws of physics, health, and the moral laws—then we realize that God is not the source of death, but that death is the result of breaking away from God and His design protocols for life, like breaking the law of respiration by tying a plastic bag over one’s head.

Then what do we do with Deuteronomy 32:39? We cannot ignore this text, so how do we understand it?

As we do with all Scripture, we place it in the setting of the entire inspired record, the setting of the Great Controversy, and we do not form our understanding only on one text. And with just a little more Bible searching, we find this clarifying text:

“The LORD brings death and makes alive; he brings down to the grave and raises up” (1 Samuel 2:6 NIV84).

In this passage, we can see the answer through Hebrew parallelism, in which the second phrase expands upon the first—and what do we learn? That God is in control of what the Bible calls the first death, not the second death; that God causes the first death but not the second death and that He will raise people from the first-death experience.

The Bible and Death

In Scripture, the word “death” is applied to two different and distinct states of being:

• The first death, which the Bible describes as a “sleep” (Matthew 9:23,24; John 11:11–14; 1 Thessalonians 4:13–17), is a state of being in which the body ceases to function and decays back to dust (Genesis 3:19), but the soul, the individuality, “sleeps” awaiting the resurrection. It’s like a computer whose battery “dies” so the computer “sleeps” until it is powered up again. The great Reformer Martin Luther wrote, “It is enough for us to know that souls do not leave their bodies to be threatened by the torments and punishments of hell, but enter a prepared bedchamber in which they sleep in peace” (Weimarer Ausgabe, 43, 360, 21–23 (to Genesis 25:7–10); also Exegetica opera latina, Vol 5–6 1833 p. 120 and the English translation: Luther’s Works, American Edition, 55 vols. (St. Louis: CPH), 4:313).

The first death is not the end of life; it is a pause in one’s life—the life will continue at the resurrection.

• The second death is the death that is the “wages of sin” death (Romans 6:23); it is the death in which both body and soul are destroyed. This death does not happen to anyone until after the judgment—after the second resurrection at the end of the 1,000 years. This is the death that occurs when one is completely and permanently cut off from God, who is the source of life. And the second death has no power over the righteous, only the wicked (Revelation 2:11; 20:6).

Understanding these two types of death allows us to understand Deuteronomy 32:39 and 1 Samuel 2:6 and how the devil, not God, holds the power of death.

God is the source of the first death—the sleep-death, which is an artificial state of suspended animation instigated and caused by God’s grace to limit the destructiveness of sin and to allow time for the plan of salvation to be carried out. If not for God’s grace in suspending for a time the ultimate consequences of sin (second death), there would be no first death, only the second death. But the Bible tells us that God in “his forbearance had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished” (Romans 3:25 NIV84). God intervened to create this artificial state of sleep-death so that Jesus’ mission to come and overcome as our substitutionary Savior could be accomplished.

Thus, the Bible rightly tells us that God is in control of the sleep-death, and it is God’s power to bring this sleep-death and to awaken people from it. But the sleep-death is not the death that is the wages of sin! The death that is the wages of sin is the death that Satan causes—and which Jesus came to destroy:

“The last enemy to be destroyed is death” (1 Corinthians 15:26 NIV84).

“Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Timothy 1:10 NIV84).

So, we have two deaths described in Scripture. The first death, the sleep-death, which is not death at all but a period of suspended animation in which a person awaits resurrection, is the artificial state of grace controlled by God for the purpose of saving humanity from sin.

But the second death, eternal death, which is a state of annihilation and from which there is no resurrection, is not from God—it is the result of unremedied sin and is the fruit of Satan’s power to alienate people from God, the source of life.

And the second death occurs not when God uses power to inflict it, but when He stops using His power to prevent it. In other words, God has been using power to hold at bay what sin does, but in the final end, God “lets go” and surrenders the persistently rebellious to reap the full consequences of what they have insisted upon, separation from Him, the source of life, and they die eternally. Just as Galatians says: “The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction” (6:8 NIV84).

God is the source of life; Satan and sin are the source of death!

Delaying the Mission

We will not be able to complete our mission of taking the gospel to the world as long as we present a god who is the source of death inflicted upon people as punishment for sin. We must reject the lie that God’s law is imposed like human law. And we must reject the penal/legal theologies that place God in the role of cosmic executioner who wields Satan’s power of death.

Instead, we must return to worshiping God as Creator, the source of life, the healer of our souls, the one who made the heavens, earth, seas, and fountains of water and who sustains all its operations.

I invite you to reject the penal-substitutionary fraud, which is based on the lie that God’s law functions like human law, and worship God in His true light as Creator, Healer, Savior, and Sustainer of all reality—the God whose laws are design laws.

There has been much speculation throughout history as to whom comprises the 144,000 of Revelation chapter seven. Do they represent the totality of the saved or just a subset of the saved? Are they the literal biological descendants of Abraham? Is this a literal or symbolic number?

The Bible does not give a specific answer. It does not say “the 144,000 are thus and so”; therefore, we are left to examine the weight of biblical evidence and come to our own conclusion.

Examining this question is a good exercise in reasoning, weighing and balancing biblical evidence, and keeping our minds open to new insights and truths—i.e., not becoming dogmatic and insisting one’s conclusion is the only possible right answer. While I’m sharing my thoughts as to whom I currently believe this group represents, I also recognize that my understanding is growing and truth is ever unfolding; thus, I am not stating my findings as a final, absolute conclusion, only that this is my best understanding of the evidence I have at this time. When new evidence or better explanations come along, we must be eager to grow and willing to update our conclusions.

With this in mind, there are some facts we must identify that will set the framework for our conclusions.

First, Revelation is a book filled with symbolism; very little of its text is to be understood literally. For instance, lamps, stars, the Lamb, dragon, beasts, horns, book with seals, bowls, women, and more are all symbolic of something else.

Thus, as we consider the 144,000, with 12,000 from twelve tribes of Israel, we must decide whether the number is to be taken literally or symbolically. The overall symbolic nature of the book would suggest this is a symbolic number, and there are other clues that support the symbolic interpretation, such as the names of the tribes—which are not the exact list of the original twelve tribes (see below).

Another reason to understand the number as symbolic is that much of the imagery of Revelation is taken from the Old Testament sanctuary service and everything in that service was symbolic, metaphor, an acted-out object lesson, and was not to be taken literally. Examples of the sanctuary symbolism in Revelation include lampstands (Revelation 2:1), the sacrificial lamb (Revelation 5:6;12), the temple (Revelation 3:12), Jesus as High Priest (Revelation 1:13–20), bowls full of incense (Revelation 5:8), golden censor and golden altar (Revelation 8:3), white robes (Revelation 7:9;13), and the ark of the covenant (11:19).

When God gave instructions through Moses for the Jews to set up a camp around the sanctuary, they did so with thirteen, not twelve, tribes. There were thirteen tribes because Joseph received a double-portion inheritance and, therefore, both of his sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, received a full inheritance. Thus, around the sanctuary on all four sides were three tribes, totaling twelve tribes, but in between those twelve tribes and the sanctuary camped the Levites for a total of thirteen tribes.

This layout of the tribes symbolically represents the plan of salvation—the reality of how it works. The sanctuary is the symbolic place in which sinners are restored to at-one-ment with God, in which sin is removed and reconciliation with God and heaven happens. The Levites represent the priesthood of believers, whose mission it is to take the gospel of salvation to the people in all four corners of the earth, represented by the twelve other tribes on the four sides of the sanctuary. The twelve tribes on the four sides represent the unconverted peoples of the world who come to the sanctuary of God for salvation through the witness of God’s people (the Levites—priesthood of believers).

My conclusion that the 144,000, 12,000 from each tribe, is a symbolic group drawn from the Old Testament sanctuary symbolism is supported by Revelation being highly symbolic, the symbolic nature of the sanctuary service, and the change in the list of the twelve tribes from the original twelve to the modified list in Revelation. But there is more …

Another clue to their symbolic nature is that the 144,000 are called the “servants of our God.” Throughout Scripture, the term “servant” is repeatedly applied to God’s prophets. And God’s prophets are not primarily those who foretell the future, like Daniel and John did, but they are God’s spokespersons, the individuals who are sent by Him to the people of that time with a message from God specifically for them (1 Kings 14:18; 2 Kings 9:7, 17:23, 21:10; Ezra 9:11; Jeremiah 7:25, 25:4, 26:5, 29:19, 35:15; Ezekiel 38:17; Daniel 9:10; Zechariah 1:6). As Amos has written:

Surely the Sovereign LORD does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants the prophets (Amos 3:7 NIV84, emphasis mine).

This would include the culmination of the events on planet Earth—God would not bring to completion the plan without first revealing it to His “servants the prophets,” who are here represented as the 144,000.

In the context of Revelation 7, an angel comes from heaven to the angels at the four corners of the earth, representing the four points of the compass (east, west, north, south)—in other words, the entire planet—which reflects the layout of the twelve tribes on the four sides of the sanctuary (east, west, north, south). So, the symbolism is that God’s angels are working among all the people of the world, holding back the winds of strife until the people called by God to be His messengers of the final call to salvation are sealed; then, the four winds are loosed.

The 144,000 of Revelation 7, therefore, represent God’s end-time spokespersons. These people are sealed by God—so settled into the truth, both intellectually and spiritually, so that they cannot be moved—and have been established at the four corners of the earth. Once these spokespersons are settled and, therefore, ready to give the final message of mercy to the world, the four winds begin to loosen and from the testimony of the 144,000, a great multitude from every nation, kindred, tribe, and people respond to accept Jesus and are saved! (Revelation 7:9).

The Names of the Tribes and Their Meaning

But there is an additional hint found in the names of the twelve tribes chosen in Revelation that add weight to my conclusion that this is a symbolic representation of people and not the literal genetic descendants of Jacob—which is that the list of tribes is given in a different order than the birth order and one of the original tribes is missing (Dan).

In Scripture, names of people have meaning. The name “Jacob” means deceiver, but when he was converted, his name was changed to “Israel,” which means one who with God overcomes.

If we examine the names of Jacob’s twelve sons, the fathers of the original twelve tribes, in the order of their birth and supply the meaning for each name, we find a message—and when we do the same thing with the twelve tribes listed in Revelation 7, we find a very powerful change to the message.

The Original Twelve Tribes:

Reuben means behold a son is born to us.

Simeon means to hear.

Levi means joined or to be joined to, attached.

Judah means praise the Lord.

Dan means judge, judging.

Naphtali means wrestling, my struggle.

Gad means good fortune.

Asher means blessed or happy.

Issachar means wages, hire, or reward.

Zebulun means exaltation, glorious dwelling place.

Joseph means increaser, may he add to my family.

Benjamin (Ben-Oni) means son of my right hand, son of righteousness.

So, in the order of their birth, the twelve sons of Israel give the following message:

Behold a Son, our Savior, is to be born to us, one who will hear us and join himself to us. Praise the Lord, He will judge [diagnose] our struggle and bring us good fortune, blessings, happiness, reward, and exalt us to His glorious dwelling place, making us His family—the children of righteousness.

The original twelve names in the order of their birth have embedded the message of Jesus, the coming of the promised Messiah. But notice the subtle but important and powerful change in the message in the way Revelation orders the names and replaces Dan with Manasseh:

The Twelve Tribes in Revelation 7:

Judah means praise the Lord.

Reuben means behold a son is born to us.

Gad means good fortune.

Asher means blessed or happy.

Naphtali means wrestling, my struggle.

Manasseh means forgetting.

Simeon means to hear.

Levi means joined or to be joined to, attached.

Issachar means wages, hire, or reward.

Zebulun means exaltation, glorious dwelling place.

Joseph means increaser, may he add to my family.

Benjamin (Ben-Oni) means son of my right hand, son of righteousness.

Now the message reads,

Praise the Lord, for God’s Son has been born to us and has brought us the good fortune of His remedy, healing us and restoring us to happiness, and our struggle is now forgotten by Him who heard our plea and joined Himself to us and ransomed us from sin. Through Him we now receive our eternal reward and are honored to be part of God’s heavenly family, offspring of faith in God’s right Hand—Jesus Christ, children of righteousness.

If my understanding of these verses is correct, God is waiting for those who will be His special end-time spokesperson to be sealed, to be settled into the truth so that no trial, tribulation, or trouble will shake them out of their love and loyalty to Him, and are able to tell the truth about His character and government in the setting of the Great Controversy—meaning, they have returned to Creator worship and understand God’s law as design law.

When this happens, the four winds begin to loosen and terrible calamities, tribulations, wars, conflicts, pestilences, and other manifestations of Satan’s power increase, making the contrast between the message of mercy from God and the malignancy of evil ever more stark and easy to see, so that people will be capable of discerning the two sides in this conflict and choose for themselves to reject the beastly powers of this world and surrender to Jesus Christ and be eternally saved.

I invite you to become one of God’s end-time spokespersons, settled into love and loyalty to God, a representative of God’s kingdom who understands the truth in the setting of the Great Controversy, who has rejected the human imposed-law lie, and who worships God as Creator, understanding His laws as design laws. For when His spokespersons are sealed, then the four winds loosen and Jesus will soon return!