✪ "The name Jubilee comes from the Hebrew word for trumpet, יובל (yovel), literally “ram's horn,” the instrument which was blown to announce the occasion. In the book of Leviticus the statement about the Sabbatical year (Lev. 25:1-7) is followed immediately by a long statement about Jubilee (Lev. 25:8-16,23-55) . . . Here it seems plain that the forty-nine years were followed by a separate fiftieth year, which was the Jubilee year proper, and this was the more usual reckoning, but even among the rabbinic authorities there was disagreement and some considered that there were only forty-nine years in the program and the forty-ninth year was itself the Jubilee year. Furthermore, the book of Jubilees (about 160-150 B.C.), which takes its name from the institution, always makes the Jubilee consist of forty-nine years and uses the name for this entire unit of time. The name “Sabbath of Sabbaths” was also used and occurs in the War Scroll from Qumran (1QM 7.14) and the related Damascus Document (CD 16.4). In a discussion of the Sabbatical and Jubilee years in the tractate ’Arakin in the Babylonian Talmud, certain rabbis are quoted as holding “that the fiftieth year is not included,” meaning not included in the cycle of seven years; but Rabbi Judah is cited as holding “that the fiftieth year counts both ways,” meaning counted as both the Jubilee year and the year beginning the next seven-year cycle. Most authoritatively Maimonides states: It is a command to count seven seven-year periods and (then) to sanctify the fiftieth year (as a Jubilee year). . . . the Jubilee year is not included in the number of the seven-year periods; the forty-ninth year is Shemitah, the fiftieth year is Jubilee, and the fifty-first year is the beginning of the (new) seven-year periods." Ref-0840, p. 127. "The majority opinion of contemporary scholars is that the Jubilee year is concurrent with a Sabbatical year. Under either scheme, however, successive Jubilee years are forty-nine years apart, since the fiftieth year mentioned in Lev 25:10-11 is also counted as the first year of the next cycle. The majority opinion is almost certainly correct, and as we will see, has independent confirmation in the chronology of the kings of Judah." Ref-1307, p. 32 "Therefore, the Jubilee year occurred every forty-nine years and was coterminous with the Sabbatical year. The emphasis of the Sabbatical year was rest for the land which was allowed to remain fallow. The Sabbatical year began in the autumn of every seventh year. Thus, the Sabbatical year was called the “seventh year” after the spring-to-spring year in which it began. In contrast, the emphasis of the Jubilee year was on the end of the year in anticipation of the permanent owner of the land sowing the first crop following the fallow Sabbatical year. Thus, the Jubilee year was called the “fiftieth year” after the sprint-to-spring year in which it ended." Ref-1307, p. 36 "If, as has been argued, the times of the Jubilee and Sabbatical cycles were known all the time that Israel was in its land, and, further, that the only adequate explanation that has yet been given for Ezekiel’s Jubilee being the seventeenth Jubilees is that the counting for these cycles actually started 832 years earlier, in 1406 B.C., then it is logical to conclude that Lev 25-27, the texts that charter the Sabbatical years and the Jubilees, were in existence in the late fifteenth century B.C." Ref-1307, p. 53 "Jubilee years occurred 49 years apart, since they were celebrated concurrently with every seventh Sabbatical year. This is confirmed in that the eighteenth year of Josiah (623t) and the twenty-fifth year of the Babylonian exile (574t; Ezek 40:1) were both Sabbatical years and were exactly 49 years apart (see the discussion on pages 48-54)." Ref-1307, p. 148 "Every seventh Sabbatical year coincided with a year of Jubilee according to Leviticus 25:8. The 50th year of Jubilee also counts as the first year of the next cycle, bringing 49 years total for each Jubilee cycle." Brian Thomas, Two date range options for Noah's Flood, Ref-0784, 31(1) 2017, 120-127, p. 124. "the Jubilee from Ezekiel 40:1 was the seventeenth Jubilee. . . . It names a year that began on the tenth day of the month, which could only be a Jubilee year. The first Jubilee began, according to Leviticus 45:2 on the 49th year after Joshua and Israel entered the promised land. Steinmann, following Young, counts backward from 574 BC (actually 574 beginning in the month Tishri, not January), a year that occurred in the 25th year of the captivity according to Ezekiel 40:1 and 14 years after the final fall of Jerusalem in 587 BC. Adding 17 Jubilee cycles of 49 to 574, plus 48 years between entering the land and the first Jubilee, plus 40 years of wilderness = 1446 BC." Brian Thomas, Two date range options for Noah's Flood, Ref-0784, 31(1) 2017, 120-127, p. 124.
✪ "There is uncertainty as to how regularly and how literally the Jubilee year was observed. According to one rabbinic source, the institution was abolished after the fall of Samaria (723 B.C.), since the words of Lev. 25:10 . . . require the Jubilee only when it can be proclaimed “throughout the land to all its inhabitants,” which was no longer possible after the deportation of the people of Northern Israel, and most Talmudic authorities are said to grant that the Jubilee was not observed in the Jewish calendar after the Babylonian exile. On the other hand, the Sabbatical year and the Jubilee were so closely related in the book of Leviticus and in their significance that it is difficult to think that the latter would fall away all together. Also, the existence of the book of Jubilees (which probably dates in the original Hebrew from the second century B.C. and was found in Hebrew fragments in Cave 1 at Qumran) and the more recently published Melchizedek text from Qumran Cave 11 attest to the importance of the idea of Jubilee in that time." Ref-0840, p. 129. "Old Testament legislation had instituted the Year of Jubilee to maintain equitable division of land (Lev. 25:8054; 27:17-24). Evidently this law was not observed in Intertestamental Judaism. More and more of the best land was progressively incorporated into royal estates or large aristocratic holdings. Consequently, less and less was available for the common person. When agricultural reversals and rising taxes forced the small farmer to borrow, interest could be quite high: lenders and tax collectors could be merciless in demanding payment. A growing number of peasants were driven from their land by forces beyond their control." Ref-1200, pp. 244-245.
✪ "Today the biblical Jubilee Year cannot be determined with accuracy because the records that preserved the exact date were presumably lost with the destruction of the First Temple. For this reason, during the Second Temple period (the time of Christ), Jewish sources such as Maimonides report that the Jubilee Year was not observed." Ref-0010, p. 115. "This Jubilee date of 1992 was obtained from the computation of the date of the first Jubilee, held 14 years after entrance of the Israelites into Canaan under Joshua in 1463 B.C. A Jubilee year has historically ended in either a 2 (Hebrew letter beth) or 52 (Hebrew letter nun beth), thus the current calendar date 5752 (1992, which actually began with the Jewish New Year, Rosh Ha-shanah, on September 9, 1991) is thought to be a Jubilee year." Ref-0144, pp. 215-216. "Ezekiel 40:1, by placing Rosh Hashanah on the Day of Atonement, provides adequate information to determine that the time of Ezekiel's vision marked the beginning of a Jubilee year. Given the Jubilee cycle of forty-nine years, there is only one chance in forty-nine that the year starting in Nisan 1406 B.C. would match the fest year of a Jubilee cycle. Since this date is consistent with a Jubilee beginning in 574, this gives strong support for the correctness of the chronology that dates the Exodus in 1446 and the entry into Canaan in 1406,in keeping with the LORD'S instructions to Moses in Lev 25:2-10 that the people were to start counting Sabbatical years and Jubilee years when they entered the land of promise. Negatively, the agreement of a Jubilee in 574 with the start of counting in 1406 is evidence against chronologies that give any other date for the Exodus, such as those that place it in the thirteenth century B.C. This much information can be deduced simply by the proper interpretation of Ezek 40:l and the passage that instituted the Jubilees in Lev 25. But when we combine this with the Seder 'Olam’s (and the Talmud's) statement that Ezekiel's Jubilee was the seventeenth Jubilee, then the fact that this gives 1406 as not just the start of a cycle, but the start of the very first cycle, in agreement with the date of 1406 for Israel's entry into the land as measured by an independent method, then it logically follows that the counting really did begin in 1406, and the Levitical priests were faithfully measuring the Sabbatical and Jubilee years over all the time that Israel was in its land." Rodger C. Young, "Ezekiel 40:1 As a Corrective for Seven Wrong Ideas in Biblical Interpretation," Andrews University Seminary Studies, Vol. 44, No. 2, 265-283, p. 275-276.
✪ "On many documents we find the word YAUKIN who is specifically said to be the king of the land of YAHUD, which all scholars admit is Judah." Ref-0045, p. 9.
✪ God chose a place among all the tribes for His name -- the temple -- in Judah.
✪ Ex. 28:17
; Ex. 39:10; Eze. 27:16; Eze. 28:13; Rev. 4:3; Rev. 21:19✪ "Ex. 28:17-21 lists the twelve stones, each inscribed and representing a tribe in Israel. Note that the jasper and the carnelian (sardius) are the last and the first (Benjamin and Reuben; cf. Gen. 49:3-27). On this basis the emerald (no. 4) would stand for the tribe of Judah." Ref-0223, p. 134n6
✪ Messiah will have to come before the tribe of Judah loses its identity. This establishes a clear time period for the prophecy. The records by which tribal identities were maintained were kept in the Jewish Temple. All of these records were lost with the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D. Within a few generations all the tribes of Israel, with the exception of Levi, had lost their identity. Immediately after 70 A.D. the rabbis passed laws which would preserve the identity of the priestly tribe of Levi, but Jews from the other tribes quickly lost their identity. In order for this prophecy to have significance to humans (God still knows the tribal identities), Messiah had to come before 70 A.D. Ref-0011, p. 22.
✪ Under Roman law, Judaism was an illegal religion. Freedom of practice was allowed, but it solicitation to make proselytes of Roman citizens was not allowed. Those of Philippi were Roman citizens because it was a Roman colony (Acts 16:12). In Acts 17:23 Paul cleverly sets forth his teaching concerning Christianity as the explanation of the existing unknown god of the Greeks thereby avoiding the accusation of teaching a completely new religion which was outlawed. Ref-0100, Tape 15:B, 16:A.
✪ "In Judaism, the estrangement caused by the innate human appetite for evil does not require an act of messianic redemption to be healed. Rather, the practice and study of Torah renew intimacy with the God of Israel and lead to eternal life. “The Holy One (blessed be He) created the Evil Inclination, He created Torah as its antidote.” (b. B. Bal. 16a)" Ref-0934, p. 18.
✪ "When [Hillel] was asked by a pagan to summarize Judaism while standing on one leg, he said: ‘Do not do unto others as you would not have them do unto you. The rest is commentary. Now go and learn." Ref-0152, p. 41.
✪ "The Greek word used in the N.T. for salvation repentance is metanoia. The Greek word [here] is metamelomai which means ‘remorse’ or ‘regret.’" Ref-0011, p. 153.
✪ Some see the unclean spirit (of Mat. 12:45) as having empowered Judas and also returning again to empower Antichrist at the time of the end. See Ref-0215, "The Antichrist Will Be Judas Reincarnated" "we think there is also a reference here to Satan's blasphemous imitation of what we are told in Rev. 5:6, where we read of the Lamb having seven eyes, which are ‘the seven spirits of God.’ Just as the Christ of God will come back to earth endued with the Spirit of God in the sevenfold plentitude of His power, so will the Antichrist present himself to Israel in the sevenfold fulness of satanic power and uncleanness. Then, indeed, shall Israel's last state be worse than their first - i.e. when they rejected Christ in the days of Judas." Ref-0215, "Antichrist in the Gospels and Epistles" Questionable: Mat. 12:45 (?);
✪ "Jude, The brother of James, was commonly called Thaddeus. He was crucified at Edessa, A. D. 72." Ref-1306, loc. 296.
✪ "Incidentally, Jude's epistle contains a nearly exact repetition of the words of the apostle Peter in 2 Peter 2:1-3:4, which had almost certainly already been written and circulated. In fact, we're drawn to the conclusion that 2 Peter was written before Jude because Jude 1:18 quotes 2 Peter 3:3, and in verse 17, Jude expressly acknowledges that it was from an apostle. Also, 2 Peter 2:1-2 and 3:3 anticipate the coming of false teachers; Jude expressly states that “certain men have crept in unnoticed” (v. 4, emphasis added; cf. 11-12, 17-18)." Ref-0789, p. 61
✪ "Christ will also be the final Judge of all moral creatures, whether men or angels. These judgments can be itemized as referring (1) to the church (2Cor. 5:10-11) (2) to Israel nationally and individually (Mat. 24:27-25:30) (3) to the Gentiles at the time of His second coming to the earth (Mat. 25:31-46) (4) to angels, probably at the end of the millennium (1Cor. 6:3; 2Pe. 2:4;Jude 1:6) (5) to the wicked dead (Rev. 20:12-15)" Ref-0104, p. 216. "Again [intertestamental Jewish] opinions differ, this time as to the identity of the judge. In 1 Enoch 90:20-27 God, “the Lord of the sheep,” sits upon the throne and condemns both fallen angels and blind sheep (apostate Israelites). However, in most of 1 Enoch and elsewhere [e.g., 2 Esdras 13:37-38], the Messiah is the sovereign judge; nothing is hidden from him as he sits on the throne of glory to judge human beings and angels [1 Enoch 45:3; 49:3-4; 53:2; 55:4; 61:8-10; and especially chs. 62 and 69]." Ref-1200, p. 291.
✪ "We should also note that what otherwise appears to have been outrageous behavior by the Sanhedrin at Jesus’ trial may in fact have been another test for Messiahship. Following his acknowledgment that he was the Messiah, they blindfolded and struck him, and demanded that he identify who had struck him (Mark 14:61-65). These actions appear to be based on “an old interpretation of Isa. 11:2-4, according to which the Messiah could judge by smell without the need for sight.” Identifying who had struck him while he was blindfolded would presumably prove Messiahship." Ref-1200, p. 322.
✪ "Concerning Paul's statement in Acts 13:19, I consider the UBS text to be preferable." David Down, Letters, Ref-0003 15(3) 2001, p. 49. ". . . a paradox is perceived between I Kings 6:1 . . . and Acts 13:17-21. . . . The patent fact gleaned from reading the narratives concerning the various judges is that the stories, men, and periods mentioned in Acts 13 overlap one another. Failure to see this leads one, as do many, to take the Acts 13:17-21 data, i.e., the 40 years in the wilderness, the “about” 450 years for Judges and 40 years for Saul's reign obtaining a subtotal of 530 years. They then add 40 years for David's reign and 3+ (or 4-) years for the beginning of Solomon's reign to the building of the Temple and obtain 573 (or some similar number by the same reasoning) as the total years . . . for the period described in I Kings 6:1 as being only 480 years. . . . However, rather than adding 40 + 450 + 40 = 530 years, the 40s were found to overlap the period of 450 and thus should be subtracted from the total. That is, in the Book of First Samuel, Samuel's life as a Judge overlaps Saul's reign until almost its end. . . . Samuel died at least one year and four months before Saul was slain on Mount Gilboa, consequently Saul's 40 years should not be added as though they consecutively followed those of Samuel's Judgeship. As Samuel is the last Judge, most of Saul's years must be taken from the 450 year total. Further, as Moses is one of the Judges, his last 40 years are included in the “about 450 years” of Acts 13:20 as are the years of Joshua's Judgeship. When this is understood and drawn, the 480 years of I Kings 6:1 are verified, becoming a major chronological key." Ref-0186, pp. 74-75. "Hence, the 40 years etc., referred to in Acts 13:17-22 must overlap the “about” 450 years and be subtracted from it, not summed. The Gordian knot is cut by simply seeing that the “about” 450 is not referring to the length of the period of the Judges at all in Acts 13:17-22! Instead, it is either: (a) A parenthetical remark concerning the span of time of this whole thought from the Exodus in 1491 B.C. until 1048 B.C. when David became King of all 12 tribes (i.e., c.443 years); (b) The 400 years of affliction (vs. 17 cp. Gen. 15:13) by Egypt plus the 40 years in the wilderness (vs. 18) and the 7 years of war until the actual distribution of the land (vs. 19) totaling 447 years; (c) A parenthetic remark beginning when the covenant ritual with Abraham (initiated in Genesis 15; cp. “chose our fathers”, Acts 13:17) was consummated in his 99th year (born B.C. 1996 - 99 = B.C. 1897) in Genesis 17 by the changing of his name from Abram and the seal of circumcision. The period ended in B.C. 1444 when the land was divided among the tribes (1897 - 1444 = 453 years). (c) is self explanatory and well may be the actual solution. . . . the following quote from Ussher, written prior to A.D. 1658 . . . succinctly embodies that which is stated in (b) as well as all that proceeded [sic] it: ‘In the year after the Elections of the Fathers, much about 450 [Acts 13:17, 19-20] for from the birth of the promised seed Issac, to this time [i.e.: the division of the land in B.C. 1444 - as seen from his preceding paragraph. He gives 1896 as the birth year of Isaac on page 6], are reckoned 452 years: and from the rejection of Ishmael, 447 but between both, we may count, 450 years.’ (author's brackets)." Ref-0186, pp. 77-78. "We therefore aver and asseverate that Jephthah knew the exact span and further declare that the 300 is a decisive component which has largely been dismissed by most chronologists, thereby compromising to a great extent the accuracy of their endeavors. By their rejection of Jephthah's statement as anything other than a general approximation, they fail to see that the time periods in the book of Judges can no longer be accurately calculated. . . . Remember, the main reason this number has not been accepted is because if the chronological calculations are based on the 300 years of Judges 11:26, it will absolutely militate against the summation technique which is invariably applied when Acts 13:20 is taken as meaning the span from Cushan to Saul's enthronement. . . . Jephthah's 300 confirms the subtracting technique." Ref-0186, pp. 89-90. "The long period of 480 years mentioned in 1Ki 6:1 has occasioned a considerable amount of perplexity. Some Chronologers, like Ussher, have adopted it into their chronological system and thereby vitiated their entire scheme from that point onward to the extent of 114 years. Others, like Jackson, Hales and Clinton, regard it as “a forgery foisted into the Text,” and reject it altogether. Others, again, have not only accepted the number 480 as authentic, and bent the Chronology of the Old Testament to make it accord with this figure, but they have even ventured upon the task of correcting St. Paul, and emended the Text of the New Testament in Ac 13:17-20 in order to bring it into accord with the 480 years of 1Ki 6:1. This “amended,” or rather this corrupted Text, is the basis of the translation of Ac 13:17-20 in the Revised Version, a rendering which absolutely precludes the possibility of putting any intelligible construction on the words of Ac 13:19-20. The Authorised Version translates the true Text of sTi. D2, E, H, L, P, and many others, item D*d., syr., ar., aeth., “when He had destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan, He divided their land to them by lot. And after that He gave unto them Judges about the space of 450 years until Samuel the prophet.” The Revised Version translates the “emended” Text of Gb1, ALEPH, A, B, C, and 7 cursives, which yields this nonsense, “when He had destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan, He gave them their land for an inheritance for about 450 years; and after these things He gave them Judges until Samuel the prophet.” The great blot of the R.V. throughout the New Testament, is the overrating of the authority of Westcott and Hort's pet MSS. ALEPH and B., two MSS. regarded as amongst the earliest and best authorities by one school of Textual critics led by Westcott and Hort, but really two faulty copies carelessly made by Eusebius for the Emperor Constantine, containing numerous errors, and by no means worthy to be adopted as a standard Text, as is clearly proved by an opposing school of Textual critics led by Burgon and Scrivener. How could St. Paul have been guilty of perpetrating a sentence which limits the inheritance of the Land by the people of Israel to the time of Eli, and then placing the period of the 14 Judges between Eli and Samuel! Fortunately, the Authorised Version adheres to the better MS. authorities, and gives not only an intelligible but also a true rendering of Paul's great speech at Antioch in Pisidia. We will first prove (I) that the true extent of the period from the Exodus to the 4th year of Solomon is 594 years: (1) from the Text of the Old Testament, and (2) from the address of St. Paul at Antioch recorded in the New Testament (Ac 13:17-20). We will then explain (II) the nature of the mistake of Ussher, who is followed in this matter by Bishop Lloyd, in the dates given in the margin of the A.V., and finally we will explain (III) the real significance of the phrase “the 480th year,” as used by the author of the Text, 1Ki 6:1, and the exact meaning which he intended to convey thereby." Ref-1299, chapter 19. See also Ref-0784, 22(3) 2008, pp. 56-57. "Great difficulty to chronologists has been occasioned by the statement of 1 Kings 6:1, which says that the beginning of the building of the temple in the 4th year of King Solomon was “in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt.” The total of the years taken in detail, from the Exodus to the 4th year of Solomon, is 594, an excess of 114 years over the statement of 1 Kings 6:1. This raises one of the most difficult chronological problems of the Bible. Some chronologers, as Jackson, Clinton, and Hales, reject the statement of 1 Kings 6:1 as an interpolation because manifestly contradicted by the detailed chronology of the Scriptures. But Bishop Usher . . . adopts it without qualification, making the length of the period in question 480 years, instead of 594. To bring this about, he abridges the period from the entrance into the land to the reign of Saul, by taking off some years at one place and some at another. For example, he changes the rest of Ehud from “fourscore years” (Judg. 3:30) to 20, and so on. Manifestly this affects to the extent of 114 years, every previous date expressed in terms “B. C.,” and all subsequent dates expressed in terms “An. Hom.” or "A.M" Dr. Anstey, however, calls attention to the striking fact that the discrepancy--114 years--is exactly the measure of the six servitudes and the one usurpation which interrupt the period of God’s government of His people through the Judges; and Dr. Anstey suggests that the 480 years are put down as the measure of the Theocracy (God’s rule over His people), and that the years when God gave over the rule of His people to their enemies are not reckoned in the statement of 1 Kings 6:1. . . . In regard to no other part of the Bible is there a greater lack of unanimity amongst chronologers of repute." Ref-1298, p. 41. See Ref-1307, p. 103 for a chronology which proposes 6 cycles of judges with overlapping dates. "This type of later scribal updating is evident elsewhere in the Pentateuch, Joshua and Judges. The most obvious of these scribal updatings is the city of Dan (Gen 14:14; Deut 34:1) which until the time of the Judges was named Laish (Judg 18:29). It would not have been possible for Moses to call it Dan. Likewise, the city of Hormah is always called by that name in the Pentateuch (Num 14:45; 21:3; Deut 1:44) although it was called Zephath until the early days of the Judges (Judg 1:17). Other candidates for such post-Mosaic updating in the Pentateuch are Bethel, whose earlier name was Luz (Gen 12:8 [twice]; 13:3 [twice]) and Hebron (Gen 13:18; 23:19; 37:14; Num 13:22 [twice]), whose earlier name was Kiriath Arba (Gen 23:2; 35:27)." Ref-1307, pp. 57-58
✪ "He answered, Sir, I perceive by the book in my hand, that I am condemned to die, and after that to come to judgement [Heb. 9:27]; and I find that I am not willing to do the first [Job 16:21], nor able to do the second. [Ezek. 22:14]" Ref-0349, p. 2.
✪ "The bema was a raised platform, and in its basic sense means “step,” although it is often translated as “judgment seat” in the New Testament. A more precise translation referring to its specific form and function is tribunal or judicial “bench.” It originated in Greece, used by both orators and law courts, but it was later adopted around the Roman world. The bema at the Praetorium in Jerusalem was also discovered just outside of the Old City wall in Jerusalem during excavations, but can no longer be seen at the site as it was removed during later landscaping of the area." Titus Kennedy, The Trial of Jesus in Archaeology and History, Ref-0066, Vol. 25 No. 4 Fall 2012, 95-99, p. 98.
✪ "We may add, that nowhere does scripture teach that the first resurrection is a judicial question; or as it is said in the tract, “This will depend on the decision of the 'Righteous Judge.'” It exclusively depends for us on the grace which has given the Christian life eternal in Christ. Such a one cometh not into judgment, but has already passed from death unto life; and He will raise him up at the last day, as He repeatedly declared (John 6). It is decided already by grace; and the believer will have been glorified before he stands before the Bema of Christ to give account of all done in the body: a process of solemn interest for the saint and affecting his particular position in the kingdom. Only perdition awaits the unbeliever when he is raised for judgment before the end." -- 20160114123340.pdf, p. 9.
✪ "What can an offended prince do more than freely offer pardon to a condemned malefactor? And if he refuses to accept of it, will any one say that his execution is unjust?" Ref-1289, p. 144.
✪ "All the Gentiles will be gathered into the Valley of Jehoshaphat for the judgment [Joel 3:2]. The very place where the Campaign of Armageddon will end is the same place where the Gentiles will be judged. . . . The word translated nations also means Gentiles, and this is the way it should be translated." Ref-0219, p. 371. "During the Tribulation, the Jews will become the dividing line for those who are believers and for those who are not. Only believers will dare to violate the rules of the Antichrist and aid the Jews. Their pro-Semitic acts will be the result of their saved state. . . . The judgment of the Gentiles, then, will determine who among the Gentiles will be allowed to enter the Messianic Kingdom. Only believing Gentiles will be allowed, and the evidence of their faith will be their pro-Semitic works." Ref-0219, 373. Questionable: Joel 3:1-3 (?);
✪ Jupiter was considered to be the god of rain and Hermes (Mercury) the god of merchandise and the dispenser of food. Ref-0100, Tape 13:B.
✪ "Politics, the crooked timber of our communal lives, dominates everything because, in the end, everything--high and low and, most especially, high--lives or dies by politics. You can have the most advanced and efflorescent of cultures. Get your politics wrong, however, and everything stands to be swept away. This is not ancient history. This is Germany 1933. . . . Turns out we need to know one more thing on earth: politics--because of its capacity, when benign, to allow all around it to flourish and its capacity, when malign, to make all around it wither. . . . Politics is the moat, the walls, beyond which lie the barbarians. Fail to keep them at bay, and everything burns. The entire 20th century with its mass political enthusiasms is a lesson in the supreme power of politics to produce ever-expanding circles of ruin. World War I not only killed more people than any previous war. The psychological shock of Europe’s senseless self-inflicted devastation forever changed Western sensibilities, practically overthrowing the classical arts, virtues and modes of thought. The Russian Revolution and its imitators (Chines, Cuban, Vietnamese, Cambodian) tried to atomize society society so thoroughly--to war against the mediating structures that stand between the individual and the state--that the most basic bonds of family, faith, fellowship and conscience came to near dissolution. Of course, the greatest demonstration of the finality of politics is the Holocaust, which in less than a decade destroyed a millennium-old civilization, sweeping away not only 6 million souls but the institutions, the culture, the very tongue of the now-vanished world of European Jewry. The only comparable destructive belongs to God." Ref-1414, pp. 2-3. "The most considered and balanced statement of politics’ place in the hierarchy of human disciplines came, naturally, from an American. “I must study politics and war,” wrote John Adams, “that my sons may have the liberty to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, and naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.” Adams saw clearly that politics is the indispensable foundation for things elegant and beautiful. First and above all else, you must secure life, liberty and the right to pursue your own happiness. That’s politics done right, hard-earned, often by war. And yet the glories yielded by such a successful politics lie outside itself. Its deepest purpose is to create the conditions for the cultivation of the finer things, beginning with philosophy and science, and ascending to the ever more delicate and refined arts. Note Adams’ double reference to architecture: The second generation must study naval architecture--a hybrid discipline of ware, commerce and science--before the third can freely and securely study architecture for its own sake. The most optimistic of Adams’ dictum is that once the first generation gets the political essentials right, they remain intact to nurture the future. Yet he himself once said that “there never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”" Ref-1414, p. 4. "The originality of the 20th [century] surely lay in its politics. It invented the police state and the command economy, mass mobilization and mass propaganda, mechanized murder and routinized terror--a breathtaking catalog of political creativity." Ref-1414, p. 24. "Ultimately, to say that people all share the same hopes and fears, are all born and love and suffer and die alike, is to say very little. For it is after commonalities are accounted for that politics becomes necessary. It is only when values, ideologies, cultures and interests clash that politics even begins. At only the most trivial level can it be said that people want the same things." Ref-1414, p. 96. "For all the sublimity of art, physics, music, mathematics and other manifestations of human genius, everything depends on the mundane, frustrating, often debased vocation known as politics (and its most exacting subspecialty--statecraft). Because if we don’t get politics right, everything else risks extinction. We grow justly weary of politics. But we must remember this: Politics--in all its grubby, grasping, corrupt, contemptible manifestations--is sovereign in human affairs. Everything ultimately rests upon it." Ref-1414, p. 128.
✪ ". . . nothing in the letter suggests that the relationship between Gentiles and Jews in the believing community was an issue in Thessalonica. If “the leading edge of Paul’s theological thinking was the conviction that God’s purpose embraced Gentile as well as Jew, not the question of how a guilty man might find a gracious God,” and if the latter question marks rather the concerns of the later West, then it must be said that Paul’s message to the Thessalonians left them in the dark about the core of his thinking while pointlessly answering a question that they were born in quite the wrong time and place to even dream of raising." Ref-1384, pp. 5-6 "The answer Paul gave to the question he is no longer allowed to have raised was that God had provided, through his Son Jesus, deliverance from the coming wrath (1Th. 1:10; 5:9). This message of “salvation”—appropriately labeled a “gospel” (= good news)—had been entrusted to Paul (1Th. 2:4, 16). To be “saved,” people must “receive” the gospel he proclaimed (1:6), recognizing it to be, not the word of human beings, but that of God (1Th. 2:13)." Ref-1384, p. 6 "Paul’s doctrine of justification (“a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ”) was formulated in opposition to this position. The formula has of late often been taken as an opening statement of his opposition: “A person (i.e., Gentile) is not justified (i.e., declared to be a member of God’s people) by works of the law (i.e., being circumcised, keeping food laws and the like) …” “To be justified” is thus construed as meaning “declared to be a member of God’s people,” “declared to be within the covenant,” perhaps even “declared to be a member of God’s family.”" Ref-1384, p. 13 "To claim that the Paul of Galatians was exercised over the terms by which Gentiles can belong to the people of God while overlooking his (still more fundamental) concern with the dilemma facing all human beings responsible before God is to suffer from a peculiarly modern myopia." Ref-1384, pp. 18-19 "That justification by faith is not in the first place an answer to whether Gentiles should be circumcised is clear when Paul discusses the justification of “ungodly” Abraham and sinful but forgiven David (Rom. 4:1–8) before even asking whether the same path to righteousness is open to uncircumcised Gentiles (Rom. 4:9–12). " Ref-1384, p. 20 "Sanders’s Paul and Palestinian Judaism is commonly regarded as the most influential book written on Paul in the last half-century. . . . also convinced many scholars that traditional views of justification are no longer tenable. The result was a dramatic shift (of Copernican proportions, in some depictions) in Pauline scholarship." Ref-1384, p. 24 "If Judaism, rightly seen, is “a religion of grace,” then legalism can hardly have been “what Paul found wrong in Judaism”; his doctrine of justification must have a different target. On the latter front, the proposals of Krister Stendahl gained immediate plausibility: “justification” was not about how sinners could find a gracious God (by grace, not by works), but about the terms by which Gentiles could be admitted to the people of God (without circumcision, Jewish food laws, and the like). A new perspective was born." Ref-1384, p. 26 "Sanders himself hints at Paul’s distinctiveness when he notes that “a concept of original or even universal sin is missing in most forms of Judaism” (18)." Ref-1384, p. 33 "The New Perspective on Paul (represented by scholars like E. P. Sanders, James Dunn, N. T. Wright) views Second Temple Judaism as not legalistic but rather a religion of covenantal nomism, where a person enters into the covenant community by grace but must obey the Law to remain in the covenant community. In addition, the New Perspective on Paul understands the fundamental problem that Paul combats to be Jewish exclusivism (i.e. excluding Gentiles by requiring Jewish identity markers such as circumcision, Sabbath keeping, food laws, in order to become part of the covenant community); in other words, the problem was not legalism but exclusivism. NT scholars have responded by pointing out that the New Perspective on Paul is selective in its evidence and that Second Temple Judaism was ultimately a mixture of legalism and covenantal nomism, a mixture of exclusivism and legalism." -- Nelson S. Hsieh, Abraham as 'Heir of the World': Does Romans_4:13 Expand the Old Testament Abrahamic Land Promises?, 2015061701.pdf, p. 105.
✪ See salvation - tenses. Comparison of justification and sanctification: 1. Justification is free whereas sanctification is costly. (Luke 14:25,33) 2. Justification is instantaneous (John 3:8). Sanctification is a life-long process (John 8:31). 3. Justification is by faith (Eph. 2:8). Sanctification is by faithfulness (1Cor. 4:2). 4. Justification is not of works (Eph. 2:9). Sanctification is of works (Eph. 2:10). 5. Justification involves Christ's love for me (John 3:16). Sanctification involves my love for Christ (1Jn. 4:19) 6. Justification concerns Christ's righteousness (2Cor. 5:21). Sanctification concerns my righteousness. 7. Justification involves my position in Christ. Sanctification involves Christ's position in me. 8. Justification considers what God has done. Sanctification considers what I am doing. 9. Justification is God's commitment to me. Sanctification is my commitment to God. 10. Justification requires obedience to one command (faith in Christ, Acts 6:7). Sanctification requires obedience to all the Lord's commands. 11. Justification focuses on the cross which Jesus took up once and for all (1Cor. 1:18). Sanctification focuses on the cross which I am to pick up daily (Luke 9:53). 12. Justification is finished at the moment of faith (John 5:24). Sanctification is not finished until I go to be with the Lord (1Cor. 9:24,27). Mike Gendron, Roman Catholicism (GB-310), Tape 7:A, Tyndale Theological Seminary https://www.tyndale.edu
✪ "The second apology of Justin, upon certain severities, gave Crescens the cynic an opportunity of prejudicing the emperor against the writer of it; upon which Justin, and six of his companions, were apprehended. Being commanded to sacrifice to the pagan idols, they refused, and were condemned to be scourged, and then beheaded; which sentence was executed with all imaginable severity." Ref-1306, loc. 400.