[Based on a series of lectures by Mordakhai Joseph]
The following words that are mentioned in the original have been changed:
God was changed to יהוה; Jesus was changed to Yeshua; Christ was changed to Messiah
Jehowah was changed to Yahweh
Bible was changed to Scripture
As we started to see in Part 1, those who have died await in their graves for the resurrection on the Last Day. We continue to look at Scripture for more information in the Nazarene Writings wrongly called New Testament
NAZARENE WRITINGS
John 1:18
18 No one has seen YAHWEH at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, that One declares Him.
{no one means no one and that includes Abraham, Jacob, Moses and everybody else }
We know that Moses spoke to Elohim and he saw him face to face. The Scriptures tell us that for forty years Elohim and Moses communicated face to face. At one point Moses wanted to see Elohim in His full glory and Elohim said to him <nobody can see me in my full glory and live>. And He allowed Moses to see His back and covered his eyes as the Eternal walked by so he would not be blinded. But at other times he saw Him face to face.
Jacob wrestled with Elohim and saw him face to face. Abraham ate lunch with him and saw him many times face to face and many others have seen him face to face.
So what does Yeshua mean by saying <no one has ever seen Elohim>?
The «elohim» (can be applied to angels and even men) that they saw were messengers from the Eternal. When he says no one has seen Elohim , he is talking about the Father, the Most High Elohim, Yahweh. The only begotten Son has declared him.
Now if people go to heaven, as some believe, then they supposedly have seen the Father, the Eternal. Yeshua makes it very plain <no one has gone up to heaven> .
On one occasion Nakdimon (Nicodemus), who recognised Yeshua as the Teacher who came from Elohim, came to him by night
John 3:1-2
1 And there was a man of the Pharisees, Nakdimon was his name, a ruler of the Yehudim.
2 This one came to יהושע{Yeshua} by night and said to Him, “Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from Elohim, for no one is able to do these signs You do if Elohim is not with him.”
And Yeshua answered him:
11 Truly, truly, I say to you, We speak what We know and witness what We have seen, and you do not receive Our witness.
12 If you do not believe when I spoke to you about earthly matters, how are you going to believe when I speak to you about the heavenly matters?
13 And no one has gone up into the heaven except He who came down from the heaven – the Son of Adam.
Nakdimon understood this statement because it was common knowledge in that time that when you die you go to the grave (not to heaven and not to hell) and await the resurrection. The doctrine of heaven and hell was non-existent in the Judaism of that day. The pagans had that concept, the Jews did not. The Jews had the word and the oracles of the Eternal, they knew better.
John 3:14-15
14 And as Mosheh lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so the Son of Adam has to be lifted up,
15 so that whoever is believing in Him should not perish but possess everlasting life.
16 For Elohim so loved the world that He gave His only brought-forth Son, so that everyone who believes in Him should not perish but possess everlasting life.
<Perish> means destroyed, gone and not everlasting suffering in hell.
There are over 2 billion (2.6 billion as of 2020) people who claim to believe in Yeshua the Messiah but believe in the ‘False Doctrine of Heaven and Hell’, even when Yeshua said <no one has gone up into heaven>. And this false doctrine is passed on from generation to generation and people accept it without questioning where it came from.
Verse 16 is a favourite among the majority of believers but very few understand it. On the one hand they say they love this Scripture and on the other hand they believe in the doctrine of heaven and hell. How deceived can people be?
Yeshua says you will possess everlasting life if you believe in him and if you do not, you perish.
The doctrine of heaven and hell says when you die you live forever in heaven if you are righteous and you suffer forever in hell if you are unrighteous. Either way you have eternal life. The reason the devil deceives the whole world to believe this doctrine is because he and his demons are the ones who will suffer for eternity. This is why the unclean spirits would tell Yeshua <Have you come to torment us before our time?> They knew what their fate was, since they are spirit beings and not flesh and blood (not stubble) they are the ones who will be in that fire continuously.
The human beings who are thrown in the lake of fire will be gone in no time and turned to ashes and they will be trampled under the soles of the righteous.
John 5:21; 24-30
21 “For as the Father raises the dead and makes alive, even so the Son makes alive whom He wishes.
{Why would the Father raise anybody from the dead if they are already in heaven or in hell. And if he makes them alive, that means they did not have life, they were dead, asleep, resting}
24 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word {to hear implies obedience; hear and obey} and believes in Him who sent Me possesses everlasting life {meaning he is going to receive it}, and does not come into judgement {condemnation}, but has passed from death into life.
25 “Truly, truly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of Elohim. And those having heard shall live.
{If they already have eternal life in heaven or in hell this verse would make no sense}
26 “For as the Father possesses life in Himself {He has eternal life, He doesn’t die}, so He gave also to the Son to possess life in Himself,
{When the son lived among us and he died, he too needed יהוה to resurrect him otherwise he would still be resting in the grave.}
27 and He has given Him authority also to do judgement, because He is the Son of Adam.
28 “Do not marvel at this, because the hour is coming in which all those in the tombs shall hear His voice, {resurrection}
29 and shall come forth – those who have done good, to the resurrection of life {eternal life}, and those who have practised evil matters, to a resurrection of judgement {instant death in the Lake of Fire}
30 “Of Myself I am unable to do any matter. As I hear, I judge, and My judgement is righteous, because I do not seek My own desire, but the desire of the Father who sent Me.
Both righteous and unrighteous will be resurrected. Those who obey the Son and believe in him will have eternal life. Those who have refused to do his will, if they do not change their mind at the resurrection, will go to the lake of fire and be destroyed. They will not be suffering for eternity. We see the love of the Eternal as opposed to the demonic concept of suffering in the fires of hell forever.
Just imagine a mother, for example, who is in heaven and is watching her son or daughter in hell burning for eternity. Can she be happy in heaven? This is a terrible and demonic doctrine. And yet, many of the so called followers of Yeshua believe in this concept and do not believe what he said <no one has ascended into heaven…>
The adversary is so clever that he throws some truth at you and twists it and that is how he deceives the whole world.
John 6:39-40, 44
39 “This is the desire of the Father who sent Me, that all He has given Me I should not lose of it, but should raise it in the last day.
40 “And this is the desire of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him should possess everlasting life. And I shall raise him up in the last day.”
44 “No one is able to come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him. And I shall raise him up in the last day.
No one can come to Messiah and unless the Father calls that person. The Father has to give us to Messiah before we can be his to live a righteous life to be resurrected in the last day. People believe the adversary’s lie that all you to need is to believe in the Messiah to be saved. Demons believe in Messiah. The point is, do we obey him? We have to believe in him and we have to believe him, we have to believe what he said. People call themselves ‘Believers’ but they do not believe him, they prefer to believe in the devil’s lies and false doctrines such as Christmas, Easter, Heaven, Hell and Sunday worship.
Yeshua will raise up those the Father has given him at the last day. He raises them up because they are dead in the grave and not in heaven. If people are in heaven or hell Messiah does not need to raise them, they are already alive. Therefore, this false doctrine is total nonsense. For this doctrine to be true the soul has to be immortal and this is the very first lie that Satan, the father of lies, told Eve <you shall not surely die>
The rich young man (some translations prominent man) came to Yeshua and asked him what do I have to do…
Yeshua answered him keep the commands…
It is not enough to believe…we have to obey what he says.
In verse 46 Yeshua says:
John 6:46
46 Not that anyone has seen the Father, except He who is from Elohim – He has seen the Father.
So where are the Patriarchs, Prophets and other righteous people of of the Eternal? Scripture tells us that they sleep in the dust and await the resurrection.
1 John 3:1 -2
1 See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of Elohim! For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.
2 Beloved ones, now we are children of Elohim. And it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.
The only way we will see the Eternal is when we become like him, of the same kind in other words. Yeshua tells us that no one has seen the Father but in the future we will.
John 6:47-55, 63
47 Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me possesses everlasting life.
{In other words, if you do not believe in Messiah you will not have eternal life. According to the false doctrine of Heaven and Hell you have eternal life even without believing in Messiah}
48 I am the bread of life.
{He is talking about His teachings}
49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and they died.
50 This is the bread {teachings} which comes down out of the heaven, so that anyone might eat of it, and not die.
53 יהושע therefore said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Adam and drink His blood, you possess no life in yourselves
{His flesh and his blood are his teachings. We have to eat and drink and put into practise his teachings to possess eternal life}
55 For My flesh is truly food, and My blood is truly drink.
63 It is the Spirit that gives life, the flesh does not profit at all. The words that I speak to you are Spirit and are life.
If you are obedient to the Eternal, if you eat the body and blood of Messiah (meaning if you obey Messiah’s teachings) then you will have eternal life which will be given to you at the resurrection.
If Adam and Eve would have obeyed the Eternal they would have had eternal life. They would have died physically and the Eternal would have resurrected them to eternal life but they were not willing to do this.
When Yeshua the Messiah himself died and was unconscious, his body did not corrupt like everybody else who dies does because the Father resurrected him on the third day. However, he was dead, if the Scriptures say he died it means he died, he did not go anywhere else. When he resurrected, Mary came and saw him and she wanted to touch him but he did not allow it
John 20:17
17 יהושע said to her, “Do not hold on to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father. But go to My brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My Elohim and your Elohim.’ ”
{This shows that Messiah did not go to heaven when he died and that he remained in the grave}
This is the first time that a man ascends to heaven, and he shall be there for the next two thousand years until his return and he shall reign upon this earth as the King of Kings and Master of Masters for a thousand years and then when the Father shall come down in the heavenly Jerusalem.
Let us go to the book of Daniel where this ascension of Yeshua the Messiah is mentioned and the purpose for it and what he received when he went up there.
Daniel 7:7-9
7 “After this I looked in the night visions and saw a fourth beast, fearsome and burly, exceedingly strong. And it had great iron teeth. It devoured and crushed, and trampled down the rest with its feet. And it was different from all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns.
8 “I was thinking about the horns, then saw another horn, a little one, coming up among them, and three of the first horns were plucked out by the roots before it. And see, eyes like the eyes of a man were in this horn, and a mouth speaking great words.
9 “I was looking until thrones were set up, and the Ancient of Days was seated. His garment was white as snow, and the hair of His head was like clean wool, His throne was flames of fire, its wheels burning fire.
This knowledge was always in the mind of the people of Yisra’el who knew and understood it. However somewhere along the line, they started believing in their own man-made theology called “rabbinic Judaism”. Among other beliefs, they started believing that the Eternal had no form or shape when He himself tells us, through Scripture, that He made man according to His image and likeness. Therefore, He looks like man and man looks like Him. He has a description and has been described several times by His prophets and this is one in Daniel of them.
Daniel 7:13-14
13 “I was looking in the night visions and saw One like the Son of Enosh, coming with the clouds of the heavens! And He came to the Ancient of Days, and they brought Him near before Him.
{Footnote: Son of Enosh - This Aramaic term is similar to the Heḇrew ‘Ben Aḏam,’ but not the exact equivalent of it. However, this Aramaic term indicates the same One!}
14 “And to Him was given rulership and preciousness and a reign, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him. His rule is an everlasting rule which shall not pass away, and His reign that which shall not be destroyed.
At the beginning of the book of Isaiah, the prophet has a vision just before the Eternal was about to send Yisra’el into captivity
Isaiah 1:1-4
1 The vision of Yeshayahu son of Amots, which he saw concerning Yehudah and Yerushalayim in the days of Uzziyahu, Yotham, Aḥaz, Ḥizqiyahu – sovereigns of Yehudah.
2 Hear, O heavens, and listen, O earth! For יהוה has spoken, “I have reared and brought up children, but they have transgressed against Me.
{This is the state of mind that Yisra'el had most of the time. If you read through Moses and the Prophets , the overwhelming majority of the time the people of Yisra'el were in rebellion against Yahweh with short periods of time of obedience}
3 An ox knows its owner and a donkey its master’s crib – Yisra’el does not know, My people have not understood.
4 Alas, sinning nation, a people loaded with crookedness, a seed of evil-doers, sons acting corruptly! They have forsaken יהוה, they have provoked the Set-apart One of Yisra’el, they went backward.
{Judah, which taken into captivity later on was even worse than the Northern Kingdom [See Ezekiel 16; Ezekiel 23]}
Yisra’el was constantly rebellious and falling into idolatry. Yahweh appears to Isaiah in a vision and the prophet describes it in Isaiah 6. After the description of the vision, Isaiah says
Isaiah 6:5, 8-10
5 And I said, “Woe to me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips – for my eyes have seen the Sovereign, יהוה of hosts.”. {The Eternal is about to purify Isaiah for the commission he has before him and after he does, Isaiah hears His voice}
8 And I heard the voice of יהוה, saying, “Whom do I send, and who would go for Us?” And I said, “Here am I! Send me.”
9 And He said, “Go, and you shall say to this people, ‘Hearing, you hear, but do not understand; and seeing, you see, but do not know.’
{This is a commission for the entirety of Yisra'el because all them had gone into rebellion against the law of the Eternal, into idolatry, into fables and the false doctrine of heaven and hell is a part of that. They fell into these things because they rejected the word of Yahweh, they did not study it, they did not walk in it.}
10 “Make the heart of this people fat {insensible}, and their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and shall turn and be healed.”
It is not that the Eternal does not want them to repent. They chose the way of rebellion, therefore, whatever little knowledge they have will be confusing for them. Furthermore, they will remain in this condition of blindness until the end of time when the Eternal will open their eyes at the return of Yeshua the Messiah.
The northern Kingdom that went into idolatry and into captivity, to this very day do not know who they are and consider themselves to be gentiles. They are, basically, the countries of North Western Europe with the exception of Germany and Austria.
11 Then I said, “יהוה, until when?” And He answered, “Until the cities are laid waste and without inhabitant, and the houses are without a man, and the land is laid waste, a ruin,
{In other words, at the end-time there will be great tribulation and destruction, the final one. This will be on the last generation of Yisrael and the majority of them will be wiped out from the face of the earth until the resurrection}
12 and יהוה has removed men far away, and the forsaken places be many in the midst of the land.
13 “But still, there is a tenth part in it, and it shall again be for a burning, like a terebinth tree and like an oak, whose stump remains when it is cut down. The set-apart seed is its stump.
{A tenth will repent and go back to the ways of the Eternal}
This time of tribulation is mentioned in various places in Scripture: Daniel 12, Matthew 24,
Mark 2, Luke 13 etc…
In Isaiah 29 the Eternal speaks about the state of mind of the leaders of Yisra’el
Isaiah 29:1
1 Woe to Ari’el{Jerusalem}, to Ariel, the city where Dawid dwelt! Add year to year, let festivals come around.
{Zechariah 14 also mentions the coming destruction of the city of Jerusalem}
Judah will go into captivity again and the reason for it is that their leaders are not leading them to the truth. They are confused and in darkness.
Isaiah 29:9
9 Pause and wonder! Blind yourselves and be blind! They are drunk, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink.
10 For יהוה has poured out on you the spirit of deep sleep, and has closed your eyes, the prophets. And He has covered your heads, the seers. {Paul also mentions this blindness that the Eternal has put upon them in the book of Romans 11 and they are still blind to this very day}
11 And the entire vision is to you like the words of a book that is sealed, which men give to one who knows books, saying, “Read this, please.” And he said, “I am unable, for it is sealed.
12 And the book is given to one who does not know books, saying, “Read this, please.” And he said, “I have not known books.”
13 And יהוה says, “Because this people has drawn near with its mouth, and with its lips they have esteemed Me, and it has kept its heart far from Me, and their fear of Me has become a command of men that is taught {even today people fear the Eternal because of the teachings of men, 'they preach about hell and its eternal fire'...}
14 “Therefore, see, I am again doing a marvellous work among this people, a marvellous work and a wonder. And the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their clever men shall be hidden.
The Jewish leaders had the term ‘our sages’ (wise men) they thought they were wise in their own eyes but the Eternal says they are not wise at all and same applies today.
In a song that the Jews sing on the Sabbath and they say – ‘the Eternal has no beginning and has no end, He has no form’. He has described Himself through the Scriptures a number of times and He says that man looks like Him and He looks like man
Daniel 7:9
9 I was looking until thrones were set up, and the Ancient of Days was seated. His garment was white as snow, and the hair of His head was like clean wool, His throne was flames of fire, its wheels burning fire. {this is a description that counters the idea that He has no form}
10 A stream of fire was flowing and coming forth from His presence, and a thousand thousands served Him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him, the Judge was seated, and the books were opened.
11 I was looking. Then, because of the sound of the great words which the horn was speaking, I was looking until the beast was slain {a world leader that is going to bring a lot of destruction to Yisrael and other nations, and its body is destroyed and given to the burning fire; See Revelation}.
13 I was looking in the night visions and saw One like the Son of Enosh {This Aramaic term is similar to the Heḇrew ‘Ben Aḏam (Son of Man),’ but not the exact equivalent of it. However, this Aramaic term indicates the same One! It is referring to Yahshua}, coming with the clouds of the heavens! And He came to the Ancient of Days, and they brought Him near before Him.
{This ceremony is described again in Revelation. The Jews should have known it all along, it is written in their Scriptures, that the Son of Man is the one who was in heaven, came down to earth and returned to heaven. He is the Messiah of Yisrael, the King of Yisra'el, physically and spiritually.}
14 “And to Him was given rulership and preciousness and a reign, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him. His rule is an everlasting rule which shall not pass away, and His reign that which shall not be destroyed.
Matthew 27:50
50 And יהושע cried out again with a loud voice, and gave up His spirit.
51 And see, the veil of the Dwelling Place was torn in two from top to bottom, and the earth was shaken, and the rocks were split
52 and the tombs were opened, and many bodies of the set-apart ones {holy ones or saints} who had fallen asleep were raised
{this is what death and resurrection are all about, these saints or set-apart ones were in the grave and were resurrected, not in heaven}
53 and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection, they went into the set-apart city and appeared to many
{the graves were opened at the crucifixion and these saints resurrected after Yeshua’s resurrection }
We will continue comparing this false doctrine of heaven and hell with the word of the Eternal in PART 3.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scriptures are from The Scriptures,
Copyright by Institute for Scripture Research.
Used by permission.