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The prevailing understanding is that man is a trinity, of sorts-- a unity comprised of body, soul, and spirit. This view, however, is not sufficient to satisfy some difficult statements in scripture; nor is it particularly useful in learning of the righteousness of Elohim or of the destiny of man; neither is it consistent even with scientific thought, which generally recognizes conscious, sub-conscious, and unconscious levels of mind, all of these being fed and animated by the life force-- the libido, or id. Of the three generally recognized components of man, only spirit iså immortal by nature, according to scripture; and as spirit is the gift of YHWH and returns å Him at physical death, one wonders how creation could serve for the perfection of spirit to mankind's benefit, and by what logic mortality could deserve an eternal condemnation for failing to serve that end. |
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Of the three generally recognized components of man, only spirit is immortal by nature, according to scripture; and as spirit is the gift of YHWH and returns to Him at physical death, one wonders how creation could serve for the perfection of spirit to mankind's benefit, and by what logic mortality could deserve an eternal condemnation for failing to serve that end. Nowhere does the scripture speak of an immortal soul, though soul can put on immortality; yet there must be an immortal component belonging particularly to mankind, else the reason for our trials and tribulations here, below, can only be irrational-- the whim of a capricious omnipotence. When our view of self is askew, can our view of Elohim be any better? Misunderstanding ourselves and God, how are we to bring light to the world? The great lamp that first shone in Galilee proclaimed of John the Baptist, that John was Elias; and John uncategorically said that he was not. There must be a cohesive interpretation by which both statements are congruent; for in Mashiyach were not found yea and nay, but yea. If apparently contradictory statements are found in scripture, it is because the reader has yet to come to the paradigm of perfect affirmation. Further, Yahushúa said of Avraham, Yitschaq, and Yaaqov, that they are not dead, and that those who seen them as being dead do greatly err: among whom we must also number Peter, if we judge, by extrapolation, only according to the letter of his words concerning the patriarch David. Again, there must be levels of interpretation in which all witness is congruent; and I began my study of these matters by taking hold of the affirmation that the Father is El of the Living and by proceeding to look at the New Testament scriptures most closely associated with a finality of death: those dealing with blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. I found that, according to the letter, those statements also differ somewhat: Matthew says, "but whosoever speaks against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come." Mark says, "he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost never has forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal condemnation." Luke says, "but unto him that blasphemes against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven." Never forgiven: period-- however one interprets the world/age context--but yet, only in danger of eternal condemnation! Many believe that only the greatest sinners are guilty of this greatest sin. However, blasphemy against the Spirit of Truth is not limited to vocalization of disbelief in the words of Moshe or of Yahushúa. The master of Torah, who judges with the mind of HaShem according to inward thought, teaches that "Whenever you have done this unto one of these, the least of my servants, you have done it unto me"; for "Him that receives you receives me, and him that receives me receives Him who sent me." Argued differently, he who offends in one point is guilty of all. We are all on the block; for we all have ignorantly blasphemed the Lord of Glory in our midst. We all, at one time or another in our lives, have called the truth a lie and have rejected its messengers, thus crucifying Truth in unbelief. It is well to say that the sin of blasphemy can only be committed willfully, purposefully; but-- willful or not-- it has the same effects in the lives of those who commit it carelessly, ignorantly: it prevents them from receiving of the truth, and those under their influence, as well. Far from being a rare sin, blasphemy against the Spirit of the Holy is a common sin; indeed, it is the first sin. Realizing I was vulnerable to the ultimate condemnation, I recalled Ezekiel's words (one of the every we must live by): "The soul that sins, it shall die": an unequivocal statement! To what, then, does salvation pertain, since all have sinned and as all sinning souls are under an unequivocal sentence of death? We know that the wages of sin are superseded by the gift of Life to those who believe, but how are we to receive this gift, since we have all characterized truth as falsehood at some time in our lives, all our souls thus being forfeit to the most solemn judgment? The Father's words in the mouth of the Son are, "Unless you believe that I AM, you shall die in your sins." Well, belief is the gateway to ransom, but not of sinful souls; for they are under an unequivocal sentence of death! When we receive of the Father's Life in the Son, we become not reformed or realigned souls, but new creatures: we walk in the newness of the Father's life, not as mere modified sinners; and yet-- more troublesome-- the new creature Paul (or him speaking through Shaul) characterizes himself as the foremost/first/chief sinner! Where, then, lies the hope of men living less careful lives? In answer to these questions, I remembered the words, "He that overcomes shall not be hurt of the second death." This scripture did not fully answer my concerns, but it became very like a magnet, drawing my mind through the inquiry. Some see the first death as the physical birth-- as our incarnation into flesh; others, as the spiritual death of the man of sin, that the child of light can be born. Although both views have merit for certain lines of inquiry, from my youth I have understood that the second death is none other than the death of the sinful soul, subsequent to the death of the physical body: for it is given unto man once to die, and after that the judgment. Note that the scripture does not say that the one overcoming shall escape the second death, but that he shall not be hurt of it. I believe that the atonement for sin that comes by the voluntary giving of the lifeblood of him who knew no sin provides a scarlet thread by which we escape the overthrow of perdition: that this atonement makes possible the process of salvation, bringing us into the congregation of Yisrael for the purpose of perfection. Strangers no longer, we drink of the living waters apportioned to Yisrael; and the old man-- the karmic husk that climbed down the scarlet thread to walk among the righteous-- continues, now, in subservient sacrifice to the authority of the Life now found in the New Man-- the Son of Man, the Complete Adam. Two sons struggle in the womb of Mitzraim, and Yisrael truly emerges only after the breach of forty years. The mixed multitude that accompanies Yisrael into the wilderness is karmic baggage. As with the mother, so with the daughter. Atonement pertains to receiving the spirit of adoption, the fruition of which is the redemption of the body (not of the sinful soul). The Romans passage testifies that we are, simultaneous to the adoption, already the children of Elohim by an immaculate conception through the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 4:15; Mt. 23:9). The manifestation of the sons of HaShem has yet to appear in its fullness because they are yet encumbered by karmic baggage, their full light being yet hidden in this final age of worldly dominance, this third measure of meal. Serai's laughter of triumph spans the ages;
for what can be the mother of this holy child, other than the
imperfect soul so ransomed? For that which is born of the Spirit
is spirit, while that which is born of the flesh is flesh; and
soul is the medium in which spirit and flesh interface: it is
the body formed by the breath of Spirit, and it comprises the
sentient faculties of the flesh. Soul/breath is distinguished
from mere air chiefly by its vapor content. As breath/expression,
soul corresponds to the Hebrew Walking the paths of life in the atonement, we take up our crosses daily, putting tereon the old man, that the new man might live in us. What is the old man, other than the sinful soul? What is the new man, other than the developing soul of the new creature? By following in the footsteps of ha Mashiyach, we work out our salvation by faith, paying the interest accrued on the wages of sin. Men of spots and blemishes could never pay the debt; but the teachings of sowing and reaping make it clear that there is somewhat to repay, and that the walk in Mashiyach is the narrow way leading to Life, and to a balancing of accounts. If the anointed of Yah shall make us free, we are free indeed. The holy, embryonic child we carry is wrapped in swaddling clothes--in the convulsive garments of the soul of the old man (Lk. 17:34). Are we not instructed that a woman will be saved-- not hurt of the second death-- if she continue in child bearing? Let us not lose hope! The wilderness travail is long and difficult because of sin, but HaShem has promised that He is able to bring us to the birth. Our zeal for the new man being born in us makes us ashamed of the swaddling garments belonging to the old man; and the temptation is to suppress them, to conceal them. To do so, however, is to abort the process of birth: to do so is to embrace the processes of death-- to become a whited sepulcher; for we have somewhat to repay for the bones buried in our pasts, and we cannot enter into freedom until the last farthing is paid. This is good; for it is the garments of the sinners we were that point to the mission fields that will be expedient, both for us personally and for the efficacious spreading of the good news of the Kingdom of Heaven. The apostle Shaul speaks of two laws operating simultaneously within himself. The intersection of these laws is the cross. By a narrow focus on their intersection, we behold the righteousness that is through the second Adam victoriously confronting and canceling the unrighteousness that entered into the first Adam-- step by step-- to raise up the new creature unto the last day: in alignment with the measurement of the Godhead that is in ha Mashiyach as it operates within us, bodily. These two laws, the one pertaining to the old man, and the other to the new, are as the sons-- words, works, formulations-- of Yahúdah (praise) by Tamar (upliftedness): they are as Zerach (arising) and Peretz (breach). These sons struggle together in the spiritual womb of the new creature, the struggle being congruent with the process of salvation itself: Zerach appears first, but succumbs to a falling away in the supplantive emergence of Peretz. Nevertheless, the election of the firstborn falls to him who bears the sign of the scarlet thread. The appearance of the finger of Zerach is as the first sign/wonder of our experience of salvation. However, Zerach is withdrawn back into the womb in a great falling away on account of Peretz, who is as the karmic debt of the sinful soul that is the old man; and only after the full presentation of the parameters of Peretz is Zerach truly born. Zerach's full measurement appears only in those who have overcome: who have faced the bones within and have fully returned life for life by the walk in Mashiyach. Thus, the perfection that appertains to humans is consummated by the true birth of the soul of the new creature, which is the Son of Man. Until the full manifestation of the sons of Elohim, we are "babes" in Christ-- embryonic heralds of that which is to come. At physical death, the body returns to earth (where there is no understanding); the spirit returns to HaShem, who gave it; and the soul, if it is perfected in its human dimensions and no sin/guile is found therein, is not hurt of the second death. This means that the second death for these is a change-- a being extended, in the Hebrew sense-- not a termination. But, what of the living fathers to whom the promises pertain who died owing wages of sin? For of them, as also of us, it is written, "There is none that is righteous" (doeth good), "no not one"! Having died in unrighteousness, are they now living in a purgatorial Sheol or Gehennah? If so, we must understand Avraham's bosom to be a kind of hell! Furthermore, the "good" thief on the cross, with little to recommend him, was promised paradise on the day of his death. We can say that the thief died after the cross and the patriarchs before; but the Lamb of Elohim was slain from the foundations of the world, and Avraham and those with him are clearly pictured in the gospels as residing in paradise previous to the temporal cross. There is a higher interpretation of the patriarchal functions than can be understood from the literal Torah stories, but the words of spirit and life must have their effects at every level of interpretation, in accordance with the extension capabilities of the Crown Diamond display and with the development levels of God's children. The land is promised not only to Avraham's seed, but also to Avraham, himself. By what means shall he inherit it? This is what I understand concerning man: the body is the outer garment; the soul is the inner garment; the angel is that which is clothed; and the spirit that proceeds from the Father is the life and the unity of the entire organism. It is given man once to die. Take away any one of these elements, and man is no longer man: he becomes a disunity, with his constituent parts being extended to their realms, or localities, of origin-- with them being gathered to their fathers. In fact, of course, there is no death; there is only extension from one form to another, as also from one state of being to another. The natural law of the conservation of energy should settle that question, even for non-believers. If thought is electrical impulses carried in the brain's synaptic system, it cannot be lost. It can only change. Look for death: where is it? It is the invention of man. Even a natural corpse is full of life, though the life of man is absent. Death is extension, and these questions have relevance only as they teach us about life. We know that the body is a garment that returns to the earth, from which it came. We know that the spirit of man is the gift of Elohim that returns to Him at death, and that no man has power to retain the spirit. If we settle the core of being upon the soul, what is left to be hurt of the second death? The second death, if such were the case, would be mere oblivion! The core of our being must be in the angelic: as it is written, "Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven." The chariot vision of man explains John/Elias. John was not Elias: he was a soul named John; the soul named Eliyahu/Elias lived and died in another age. John was Elias: he was the spirit and angel of Elias come as the soul named John. Yahushúa turned the age upside down: he taught us that our roots are in heaven (Mk. 8:23-25). Because our roots are there, we rejoiced at the creation of Earth. Because salvation pertains to the inward thought of the creature made of dust, those angels not buried in the flesh greatly desire to look into the good news concerning man. Barak-El! The immortal angel is the fiery grub, the chrysalis of the soul. The flesh is the cocoon. The transformations that occur in life are not from one thing to another thing; they occur within the same thing. It is by virtue of this fact that the angelic sons of Elohim, seeing that the daughters of mankind were fair, were able to father sons of them. The angel is the first formulation of Spirit. It is naked fire. Delineated as a spark from the consuming fire of HaShem, the angel seeks a house but is incapable, on its own, of inhabiting one without causing its ultimate dissolution. The angel is a pillar of fire, a tongue of fire, a worm of fire. It achieves stability only when positioned in a lamp. Knowing this to be true, the angels rejoiced at the creation of earth. "Worm" is a fitting metaphor for fire, which is the natural element of the angelic. A worm is all slopes-- all eshdat, "the manner of fire." It climbs tentatively, it burrows, it consumes its path. Divided, it is cloned. Water, in its free state, is its natural peril. When the angel enters the cocoon of flesh in an incarnation, the life of the soul commences with the first breath; however, the soul's life at birth is but the beginning of a process of transformations leading unto eternal life. The destiny is certain, but the stages along the way depend upon the soul's progress in the will of YHWH. When that which is perfect is come, the imperfect stages fall away. We have a foretaste of this truth even now, as we daily move, from stage to stage, towards perfection. Air is spirit; spirit is life; and the life of the body is in the blood: the air and the fire/angel/ish inhabit the blood-- commingling there, even as in natural combustion, wherein the air/spirit maintains constant transaction with the fire/angel. Without the spirit and the fire, the body must die and the soul must be surrendered to the judgment. The angel's immortality consists of its inseverable link to the Spirit of HaShem: the angels are His words, even as Yahushúa is His Word; and they do not fall to the ground in vain. The body's mortality consists of its dependency on the light energies belonging to the incarnated angel. Through means of the body, the immortal angel puts on mortality; and by means of the perfected soul, the naked angel gains an immortal garment of soul, a celestial body. In an incarnation, as the blood (lake of fire)
interacts with the cells of the body, the soul is energized:
the sentient capabilities of the cocoon/flesh are activated,
and the life of the angel becomes manifest in the faculties of
the host shell (body). Thus, we see soul The lake of fire above is HaShem. He sends forth His angels/sparks by means of the holy flame of His Word: He speaks them, breathes them: one by one, He sends them forth to the earth. It is these sparks of HaShem that become man/ish. As man/adam, the flesh/adamah glows with the light of the fire/divine spark/ish incarnated within the cocoon of the earthen tabernacle. This glow is soul as expression. As an expression A woman/isha ("garment"/the
flesh) encompasses a man/ish ("fire being");
and this woman dies (is extended) in childbirth, transforming
the man by her extension. That which we have been is the womb
of our becoming. The emergence is Zerach, a "lifting of
the light." Zerach-- the emergence of the light body (soul An imperfect son of mortality/enosh clings to the mortal and perishes with it: such a son is stillborn. In the metaphor of Peretz/Zerach, it does not gain the inheritance/birthright of the firstborn. A perfected son of mortality puts on immortality and rises from the cocoon of the flesh in an imperishable form, the body of light. The scarlet thread-- the karmic trail of blood/life-- accompanies the elect son (Zerach) through all of his struggles with Peretz in the cocoon/womb/flesh. Not every incarnation produces a butterfly (perfected soul/light body): adversity exists; impairments occur. The angel who fails to complete its transformations in an incarnation is not lost, however: it remains immortal, a spark of HaShem. It is gathered, again, into the lake of fire above, where it is purged and purified. The aborted soul that was in process of creation in an incarnation but that failed to reach perfection is lost; but that loss does not involve the life of the angel. The immortal angel can be sent forth again, into a new cocoon. The light body is formed by the release/surrender/ Again, I've written many words and have failed to write clearly. Discussing the pe soul and the bet soul is like discussing the double helix of the DNA string. It is possible to make the jump between the two understandings, but it's no easy matter to explain exactly what you're about. I've had visions of people I know, seeing them in their angelic form as they were previous to incarnation. That form is an unstable cloud of fire, like a sun. The core, I understand, becomes the fiery grub for purposes of incarnation. In comparison to the light body we are destined to attain, the earthen vessel is like a bushel over a lamp: it obscures the light within; and the light within must eventually burn up the earthen vessel, releasing the incarnate fire. To come to an enduring house, our souls must be fully transformed, as also our bodies in that great day when the last of our enemies is vanquished. To appear, however, light must inhabit a medium. Without a medium to differentiate between them, light and darkness are indistinguishable. "Space" is black in full sunshine because there is nothing to receive and reflect the light. Blessed be The Name of YHWH, who divides the light from darkness. "Now we see through a glass darkly...": the soul's imperfection is both measurement of the darkness within and also the very means by which we are able to be drawn further into the light. Do not fear darkness: YHWH has winked at it for our sakes, and now our Light is come. Perfected, we shall see Him "face to face"-- that is, "face upon face"-- even as it is also written: "I know that in my flesh shall I see YHWH...." Blessed be HaShem, and may His faces shine forth continually from within each of us. Shalom. |
. As breath's garment of
vapor-- as the first "house" of the Spirit-- soul corresponds
to the Hebrew 
. Even in their vocalization, these
symbols of Elohim differ according to use of breath.
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