Issued: 5/9/23

PLEASE NOTE:  Because Bible versions sometimes differ from each other in crucial ways, the version quoted here will be the one that best clarifies the point being made.  For a quick comparison between versions, please go to: http://www.biblehub.com.

   All bracketed material may be authorial comments, attempts at proper syntax, or minimal rewordings of Scripture for the sake of clarity and continuity.  These emendations will not be italicized.

   The “/” will be used to signify “and/or.”  The symbol “↔” is used to connect verses corroborating each other and so establishing doctrinal truths (Matthew 18:16↔2Corinthians 13:1).

   In differentiating between Yahweh of hosts [later Jesus] and Yahweh the Most High God, lower case letters have been used when discussing the former; upper case letters are reserved for the One and Most High God.  Since Jesus was at pains to differentiate himself from God the Father, we have followed his lead here.

   The term neo-Christians will be used to differentiate between false Christians and Jesus’ true followers.

Parallels between Evil and Disease

   As Isaiah 1:4-6 suggests, Scripture treats evil as some sort of spiritual disease.  Isaiah’s ‘leprosy’ can be managed through righteous acts (Isaiah 1:16-17); so the ‘head-to-toe body’ Yahweh references is Scriptural imagery for ‘soul.’  Obviously good deeds do not cure bodily leprosy, but in God’s eyes they lessen the gravity of soul rot; hence Isaiah 1:18:  “Though your sins be like scarlet, they may become white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they may become white as wool.”

   Jesus tackled the same notion from a different angle:  “Physician, heal thyself” (Luke 4:23); where ‘healing’ involved taking steps to overcome sin.  In this respect Jesus prescribed a regimen—Christian doctrine—to follow; but it was up to his ‘patients’ to take his brand of medicine or reject it, with the understanding that any other medications were no better than placebos (John 14:6).  Again, the flesh was not involved; the soul was.  Jesus made that clear in Matthew 26:41:  “The spirit [your soul] is willing [to be healed], but [sinful] flesh is weak [resists healing]”; which Paul elevated to a higher plane:  “For what the flesh desires is opposed to the [Holy] Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want” (Galatians 5:17).  Still Jesus was more specific:  “It is the spirit [soul] who gives life; the flesh profits nothing.  The words [prescription] that I speak to you are spirit and life [life-giving, spiritual medicine]” (John 6:63).

   It is important to realize that though the ‘treatment’ amounts to the same thing in both cases, no lasting cure is guaranteed.  In men’s lifetimes sin is a recurring condition:  “Surely there is no one on earth so righteous as to do good without ever sinning” (Ecclesiastes 7:20); and, “there is none righteous, not even one; there is none who understands, there is no one who seeks for God…there is none who does good, there is not even one” (Romans 3:10-12).  Thus when Yahweh talks of sins becoming white as snow, He implies gradual ‘healing’ predicated on life-long obedience and observance of Christian doctrine, so that the definitive cure happens during the first resurrection when soul and flesh become immortal—i.e., disease-free (Ezekiel 37:4-6,9-14; 1Corinthians 15:50-53; 1Thessalonians 4:14).

   Jesus implied this daily struggle in his exhortation to bear his cross day in and day out unto death (Luke 9:23).  In Philippians 3:12-14↔1Timothy 4:16), Paul understood that the Christian regimen was a life-long endeavor; and that many died without receiving their ‘cure’ (Hebrews 11:39).  Though the dead in Jesus found release from their daily ‘afflictions,’ their sleeping souls would be reawakened when a universal ‘cure’ was granted to all the redeemed (Revelation 6:9-11, 7:9,13-14↔Isaiah 53:8, 14:12-13).

   Diseases have symptoms specific to them; behaviors and words, their egregiousness and extremes, are evil’s ‘symptoms’ (Proverbs 4:16; Matthew 7:15-20; Luke 6:45; James 3:6-12).  Like some people genetically predisposed to disease, every human being is predisposed to do evil (Genesis 6:5; Ecclesiastes 8:11, 9:3).  While the delusion that human nature is intrinsically good is very comforting, we see by the above that the ‘results’ of divine ‘scans’ and spiritual assessments paint a different picture.  And while Genesis and Ecclesiastes focus on the human ‘heart,’ this is by no means the pumping organ in our chests.  Again we are dealing with Scriptural symbolism:  If the life of all flesh is in their blood (Leviticus 17:11), immortal life is in their souls; so that in the context of Scripture, ‘hearts’ is Scriptur-ese (sic) for souls.

   Nowhere is this shadow-substance correspondence more clear than in circumcision, for the prepuce God wants removed is not the foreskin of the male sexual organ, but that of the heart, which has no foreskin (Jeremiah 4:4; Romans 2:29).  Why this duality?  For two reasons:  a) because in God’s conception, man and woman are viewed as a single entity (Genesis 5:2), so that physical, male circumcision in Judaism ‘covered’ related females’;¹ and b) because in Christianity women are individually called to salvation just like men, and while they lack prepuces, they do have hearts that need to be ‘circumcised.’  Needless to say both approaches are reconciled in Jesus, who bridged the gap between Jews and Christians.  In life he was circumcised as prescribed, whereas in death he rendered carnal circumcision obsolete.  His body, the Church, comprised of men and women, then became a spiritual construct rather than mortal flesh, where circumcision of the heart was required of all members (Acts 15:24,28-29; Galatians 2:3-5, 3:13-14,28, 5:3-6; Ephesians 5:23,29-32).

   In summary, spiritual disease manifests itself through behaviors:  “immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these” (Galatians 5:19-21).  Scripture is God’s textbook for the causes and treatments of evil:  All that is required is consistent adherence to its precepts (1Timothy 4:16)—with the understanding that if a total cure in this world is never possible (Ecclesiastes 7:20; Romans 3:10-12; Philippians 3:12-14), remission of sins can always be had through Jesus’ blood (Hebrews 9:22; 1Peter 1:18-19; Revelation 7:14).

   Here is where wisdom enters the picture, not the way men understand the word, but a specific kind of wisdom which is spiritual and God-given.  Scripture might be accessible for mankind to consult (Deuteronomy 30:11-15; Matthew 24:14; Acts 1:8), but the understanding of it is hidden from men (Isaiah 29:10-16↔1Corinthians 1:20-21); and only revealed—by God Himself through the Holy Spirit Jesus mediates and imparts—to those whom God finds worthy of ‘treatment.’  That ‘hidden’ wisdom is the only effective medicine available to us.

The Hidden Wisdom

   The notion of hidden wisdom was first introduced in Deuteronomy 29:29 for a specific objective:  “The hidden things belong to Yahweh our God; but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law”—i.e., adherence to regimen.  Paul amplified:  “We speak God’s wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory and which none of the rulers of this age has understood, for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory…But God has revealed [that wisdom] to us by his Spirit…the Spirit [Who knows the thoughts] of God [and is sent] that we may understand what God has freely given us…not with words taught us by human wisdom, but with those taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual things [that must be discerned spiritually]” (1Corinthians 2:7-14).

   Paul was not speaking off the top of his head:  “When the Counselor ²has come, whom I [Jesus] will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth Who proceeds from the Father…He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on his own authority, but will speak whatever He hears” (John 15:26, 16:13).  And John summarized:  “As for you, the anointing [Holy Spirit] that you received from him [Jesus] abides in you, and so you do not need anyone to teach you.  But as his anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, [abide in Jesus] just as it [the Holy Spirit] has taught you” (1John 2:27).  What are we being told?  The Holy Spirit explains the ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts’ related to treatment, but Jesus is in charge of medication and dosage.  Their interaction is essential in the management of spiritual disease.

   Why this elaborate scheme?   Because God foreknew men would never do as they were told:  Witness the mess ‘Christians’ of all ages have made of Jesus’ doctrine on top of what Jews made of the Mosaic Covenant.  God could not trust religious leaders to keep Scripture inviolate (Deuteronomy 4:2; Ecclesiastes 3:14):  Witness all the dogmas, commentaries, interpretations and spun yarns that have plagiarized/adulterated the Holy Spirit’s dictation in Old and New Testaments (Jeremiah 8:8, 23:32; Ezekiel 22:26; Zephaniah 3:4; Malachi 2:7-8; 2Peter 1:20-21).  Is it any wonder that contemporary Judeo-Christianity is mired in apostasy (2Thessalonians 2:2-10), given than men are more interested in pet dogmas than being on Jesus’ page?  What was it he said?  “Every kingdom divided against itself will not stand” (Mark 3:24).  Thus the Judeo-Christian experiment, in human hands, has failed and is in its last throes.

Been There, Done That

   When God established the Levitical priesthood, it was not in hopes they would fulfill the spirit of His laws, but only to boost Jewish spirituality with Christian medication diluted in the inert medium of Mosaic Law:  Filter out the latter and the former regains its true potency (Hebrews 9:8-12).  Scripture tells us why Mosaic rules and regulations offered no lasting antidote against sin (Ezekiel 20:25; Acts 15:10; Hebrews 7:19):  For Jews it was all about getting brownie points for doing things by rote rather than in the spirit of faith—like self-dosing with vitamins to fight off cancer.  Jesus told us as much in Matthew 23:1-35 and Paul concurred in Romans 9:31-32, Hebrews 8:9-10.

   Note how in Matthew 23:3, Jesus advised his followers to do what priests instructed in terms of Mosaic rituals, yet not to imitate their hypocritical behaviors (Matthew 23:23-28; Luke 12:1).  Most glaringly, Jesus accused those priests of complicity in the egregious acts of their predecessors (Matthew 23:30-32), so that enablers and abettors separated by centuries were equally complicit. ³  Paul made a similar argument with respect to the religious recidivism of the Jews (2Corinthians 3:13-14)—who be it said in passing were ‘chosen’ not for their moral excellence but for being a blip in the landscape of contemporary superpowers (Deuteronomy 7:7, 9:4-6↔1Corinthians 1:27).

   Consequently, the Levitical priesthood was no ‘trial-and-error experiment’:  It was foreknown to be a failure even before its inception.  The fact that it would underperform established the precedent for subsequent generations that human mediators with respect to God were to be avoided if not shunned altogether.  Hence Jesus’ appointment as the sole mediator between God and men—not only during his lifetime but throughout the Old Testament as Yahweh of hosts (Deuteronomy 18:5↔Acts 3:20-26; Isaiah 64:4; John 14:6; 1Timothy 2:5).⁴ Despite Paul’s warning in Acts 20:29-30, within a couple of centuries after Jesus’ death, priestly go-betweens were popping up across Mediterranean nations—erecting again the Trojan horse that had undone the Jews.

   Levitical priests were not recipients of the Holy Spirit:  Their worldly focus and their personal agendas precluded that (Ezekiel 22:26, 34:2-3↔Luke 20:46-47; Zephaniah 3:4; Zechariah 10:2; Malachi 2:7-8).  The Yahweh of hosts/Jesus who instructed them in the Holy of Holies was the connector between dynamo [God] and light-emitters [priests], following the template set in place between Moses and Aaron (Exodus 4:16).  The Holy Spirit flowed through Moses, not Aaron, who failed his divine commission when bowing to human demands, he was instrumental in the reintroduction of idolatry amongst God’s people (Exodus 32:1-25)—history in the making to be replicated literally and figuratively by future Judeo-Christians.

   In contrast Jewish non-priests effortlessly channeled the Holy Spirit and gave insights into God’s hidden wisdom.  Samuel knew not only the importance of unconditional obedience to His God, but drew parallels between human mindsets and spiritually bankrupt practices (1Samuel 15:22-23↔Isaiah 1:10-14; Matthew 6:24, 15:17-18; Romans 2:29↔Deuteronomy 10:16; Jeremiah 4:4).  In life Elisha had been so infused with the Holy Spirit⁵ that in death his bones retained the potency of life (2Kings 13:21):  He knew that God’s ministry was diametrically opposed to acquiring temporal goods and prestige (2Kings 5:21-27↔Matthew 16:26; Luke 17:28-29; 2Timothy 2:4; James 4:4).⁶  It is not happenstance that these two men preached Christian precepts before Christianity became of age.

   Thus when Jesus came, he did not scour Jewish religious enclaves to pick his Apostles:  He went to non-priests to ensure his doctrine would not be tainted by intractable, compromised mindsets.  To this day men turn a blind ear to Jesus’ warnings in Matthew 20-25-27, 23:8, and Luke 16:16 paramountly:  Human help is not needed in the teaching role I will myself undertake; John the Baptist was the last prophet in the Old Testament mold; but beginning with me, each disciple will be dosed with the measure of the Holy Spirit I see fit to give him/her commensurate with his/her spiritual capabilities (2Corinthians 8:12).  No need requiring of John what I expect from Peter (John 21:15-22); no need to push anyone beyond his/her limitations (1Corinthians 10:13).  Limit yourselves to repeating my prescriptions verbatim and let me do the rest.  Acts 17:1-8 exemplifies that synergy.

   We conclude, then, that Jewish priests were never privy to God’s hidden wisdom:  Their eyes were not on the prize but on prizing worldly things; so that like Gehazi’s, their spiritual leprosy was irreversible.  Or like the diseased in Isaiah 1:1-6, “from the sole of the foot even to the head there is no soundness in it, but wounds, welts, and open sores. They haven’t been closed, bandaged, or soothed with oil.”  Which oil?  The symbolic anointment:  The Holy Spirit (1John 2:27).

Soul ‘Physicals’

   The Jews had their chance during the “times of [Christian] ignorance” (Acts 17:30):  They blew it.  Come Jesus, the times of the Gentiles began ticking (Luke 21:24), only to end in apostasy and world destruction:  We have blown it too.  Not pleasing to know but, like global warming, another inconvenient truth.  The question is, how do we proceed in the time remaining us?

   For those of us striving to reconcile with God, fact/reality checks should be standard procedures.  We need to measure ourselves against God’s standards to determine what offending behaviors make us ‘diseased’ in His sight; and then strive for remission through the imitation of Christ.  If claiming to have a ‘personal relationship with Jesus’ makes us think we are on the mend, we are barking up the wrong tree:  “If I justify myself, my own mouth will condemn me; if I say, I am perfect, that also will prove me perverse” (Job 9:20)—which is the reason why Paul warnedthat “if anyone thinks he [she] is something when he [she] is nothing, he [she] deceives himself [herself]” (Galatians 6:3).  The crux of the matter is not how ‘well’ we think we are but how God thinks we are responding to treatment; and the answer is not very complimentary:  “My people are foolish. They don’t know Me. They are foolish children, and they have no understanding. They are skillful in doing evil, but they don’t know how to do good” (Jeremiah 4:22).

   Those who believe the above apply exclusively to Old Testament Jews will do well to realize that Old Testament narratives are windows into future trends (Ecclesiastes 1:9-10):  They warn post-Biblical Judeo-Christians about the errors of our ways.  If we were all hunky-dory with God, the Bible would not be prophesying a global falling away from faith (2Thessalonians 2:3); nor would people be saved ‘by grace’ instead of merits earned (Ephesians 2:8-9); nor would there only be 144,000 blameless amongst the world’s population who never corrupted Christian teachings (Revelation 14:3-5).  What are the statistics that any one of us will be counted amongst those first-fruits?⁷

Treatment

   Nonetheless there are ways of improving the odds; and like multi-step systems to overcome destructive behaviors, the Bible has its own.  After acknowledging we are ‘sick’, Step #1 is learning to truly fear God—by definition, the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 9:10).  Which does not mean the quaking and trembling satanic vectors in Judeo-Christianity have preached about ‘vengeful’ Yahweh for centuries; if anything let us focus on the Yahweh Who prides Himself in being “slow to anger” (Numbers 14:18; Psalms 103:8), Who despite all insults heaped on Him since Day One, withholds His  wrath until Armageddon (Deuteronomy 32:35↔Revelation 20:9; Isaiah 42:14).

  That being said God demands obedience; He is not into negotiations or giving explanations for His actions (1Samuel 15:22-23; Job 40:2; Daniel 4:35; 1Corinthians 10:22).  After all the world is His property, a place where men are viewed as aliens and passers-by (Leviticus 25:23), and given privileges rather than rights predicated on contracts [covenants] of obedience between Him [Landlord] and mankind [tenants]—plus the very important proviso that while He ensures human survival, there is no material way men can repay Him with (Job 41:11).

   Proverbs 9:7-12 exhorts knowing the Most High, which to the degree He has chosen to reveal Himself, is exactly what He wants us to strive for (Jeremiah 9:24); and here again knowledge of God is paired with fear of Him, which seems to suggest that the more we fear Him, the better we know Him.  Jesus told us to love and to fear God (Matthew 10:28), the One able to destroy both body and soul with heavenly fire at Armageddon.  And although God is love (1John 4:8), He is also Deity; so that His ‘love’ is not the indiscriminate emotion men practice, but balanced equally with other attributes like mercy, forbearance, compassion and justice.  God’s love is a conceptual form of love totally devoid of all the trappings that contaminate human love; so that in summary, obeying God and fearing Him inform our worship of Him, which He rewards with hidden wisdom (Jeremiah 33:3; Luke 11:13; Hebrews 11:6; James 1:5-7).

   On the one side, rudimentary wisdom puts us on the path to healing; but like with any form of treatment, more potent medication is needed to ensure effectiveness and higher rates of success.  Paul argued along these lines when he differentiated between milk—rudimentary Christian precepts—and solid food—hidden wisdom (Hebrews 5:12-14).  It is the latter which opens our ‘spiritual’ senses to the truths underlying Scripture; as for example Jesus’ pre-existence as Yahweh of hosts from Genesis to Malachi, and the personal side of his ministry as recorded in the Book of Psalms.  Whatever faithless Biblical scholars and interpreters make of Jesus is wrong; so that people relying on them for guidance do so at their peril.

   No one can say Scripture has not given us plenty of warning about this state of affairs (Isaiah 29:9-16↔1Corintians 1:20-21; Jeremiah 5:31, 8:8), the offshoot of which is to deprive the faithless of healing and cure (Isaiah 28:13; Mark 4:23; 2Corinthians 4:3).  This too was foreknown:  “None of the wicked will understand, but those who are wise will understand”; the former will get sicker while the latter will stick with treatment (Daniel 12:3,10; Revelation 9:20-21).  The onus is whether we take God’s medication with its unpleasant side-effects or whether we reject it and die of the disease.

Side Effects

   Now for the bad news:  Like all forms of medicine, wisdom has its down side.  While Proverbs 4:7 exhorts us to acquire wisdom above everything else, Solomon tells us that “in abundance of wisdom [is] abundance of sadness, and he who adds knowledge adds pain” (Ecclesiastes 1:18).  Why?  Because wisdom makes aware of the overwhelming evil that hangs over mankind (Ecclesiastes 8:6); and in doing so makes our pain worse by proving wrong every assumption, ideology, and methodology by which we conduct our lives.  At this juncture we bow to Jesus’ lead in John 16:12:  “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now”; for enlightenment is so despairing Jesus must minister it in incremental doses rather than all at once to the weakest in faith.  It is up to the Holy Spirit to diagnose when a person is ready to ‘see’ and ‘understand’ Scriptural symbolisms, parables, and allegories that keep him/her informed of the benefits and dangers of treatment.

   Jesus never promised us a rose garden:  “Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows” (John 16:33); and as if to draw the point home, on his way to the cross, he signified himself as the exemplar of worst things to befall his followers:  “For if they do these things in the green tree, what will be done in the dry” (Luke 23:31)?  It was not only that his medication carried unwanted side-effects, but that those rejecting it would be spiritual enemies of those taking it (Matthew 10:35-36; John 15:19); hence Paul’s warning:  “Indeed, all who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2Timothy 3:12).  In point of fact we got a preview of this mindset at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when naysayers resisted vaccination and ripped off masks worn by people following health guidelines and attempting to keep others safe—i.e., practitioners of the Golden Rule.

   Jesus’ Garden of Eden was to be found in another order of things; and we can certainly not accuse him of trying to downplay the severity of his treatment.  The Apostles knew that from their own experiences; but when they talked about suffering, they accentuated the positives:  It was not pleasant but in time yielded “the peaceful fruit of righteousness” (Hebrews 12:11).  “This light, temporary nature of our suffering is producing for us an everlasting weight of glory, far beyond any comparison” (2Corinthians 4:17).  Peter ran the gamut from virtue to love (2Peter 1:5-6).  Maybe this approach was needed back then not to scare prospective converts away, which Jesus apparently thought unnecessary (John 6:60-67); but we are so close to the end of our race—figuratively and literally—that dilly-dallying serves no purpose at all.  Besides the Bible is about truth and as long as we deal in truths, we improve our chances of remission.

It Is What It Is

   Suppose we are on a sinking ship and God throws us a piece of wood to remain afloat:  Either we swim to it facing doubts and uncertainties or we go down with the ship.  Cancer survivors know chemotherapy is fraught with side-effects, yet in hopes of a cure—or at best remission—they take their chances with it.  So it is with Jesus:  We accept his treatment or we perish.

   In this respect Jesus is our Savior but also our source of pain, since it is he who imparts hidden wisdom without which salvation is uncertain.  Like being adrift in an open ocean or enduring chemotherapy, there are risks we must take that we would prefer not to; hidden wisdom opens doors we would much rather remained shut and not cross.  Yet it is the only ‘medicine’ offering us the one outcome we prize above everything else and which cannot be obtained by any other means.  So like Peter we are stuck with Jesus:  “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life.  We have come to believe and know that you are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (John 6:68-69).  And stuck in a literal sense: “Apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

   If like all seriously ill people we cannot choose alternative treatments other than the one proven most effective, we have the consolation—and inspiration—that Jesus himself went through the discipline of God’s costly regimen.  We ‘infected’ Jesus with our sins, which he freely chose to do in order to heal us (Isaiah 53:5); but such nobility of purpose did not exempt him from the sacrifices he now asks of us (Luke 14:26).  Neither should we lose sight of the fact that if God Himself allowed evil to befall Jesus (John 18:11, 19:11), it is Jesus himself, after learning obedience through his own ordeal (Hebrews 5:8), who now allows evil to befall upon us so that we are similarly ‘treated’ in the Father’s regimen (Acts 9:16; Hebrews 12:5-7; Revelation 2:27↔Psalms 2:8-9).

   And once again it is the Holy Spirit’s hidden wisdom lets us know the ins and outs of treatment, how well we are doing and what lies ahead.  When Paul despaired, he was given a booster of hope:  “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2Corinthians 12:9); and over time he experienced a sense of immunity:  “All discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain, yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it” (Hebrews 12:11).   Peter charted the same optimistic outcome:  from faith to virtue, from knowledge to self-control, from patience to piety, from fraternal love to the love which promises cure and release from the isolation ward of sin (2Peter 1:5-7). 

   It is that awareness of love that leads to knowledge of God (1John 4:7), the favorable prognosis stated in the following: “I will put My law in their minds and inscribe it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they shall be My people.  They will no longer each teach his brother, saying, ‘Know Yahweh;’ for they will all know Me from their least to their greatest” (Jeremiah 31:33-34).  And by which means specifically?  “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit [cleansed soul] within you; I will remove the heart of stone from your [body] and give you a heart of flesh.  I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.  You will live in the land that I gave to your forefathers; so you will be My people, and I will be your God” (Ezekiel 36:26-28).

   See how Ezekiel involves the Holy Spirit, the active ingredient in Jesus’ medication, Who “helps our weaknesses, for we don’t know how to pray as we ought. But the Spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings which can’t be uttered” (Romans 8:26).  Viruses latch on to healthy cells and play havoc with them; the Holy Spirit infiltrates our minds and souls to treat those spiritual deficiencies that need improving.  And whatever ‘intercession’ goes on between Him and the Most High God, as Paul suggests, can be likened to IV fluids whose rates of dripping are adjusted in the course of treatment.  We might be all ‘spiritually’ diseased, but the degree of illness is not the same in all of us.  Some of us, according to what is expected of us, receive larger doses of hidden wisdom (Luke 8:17-18; 2Corinthians 8:12; 2Peter 3:15-16); nor are all capable of withstanding more aggressive forms of treatment, for which reason no one will be tempted above and beyond his/her individual capacity to resist.

    To put it bluntly, we are caught between the Rock [God] and a hard case [Satan].  It is true that the latter can do nothing that the former does not allow; but since Satan metes out God’s discipline, however painful it might be, we have no choice but to grin and bear it.  Like Paul’s ‘great cloud of witnesses,’ we should focus not on present difficulties but on their aftermath:  “They all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them and embraced them from afar, and having confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth”; seeking full citizenship in God’s Heavenly City (Hebrews 11:13-16, 12:1).  They too underwent spiritual ‘chemotherapy’ weighing side-effects against the promise of recovery; and by that mindset acknowledging that hoping against hope was a better alternative than wasting away in temporal delights.

   They did not settle for the inevitability of sin and its corrosive leprosy on their bodies and souls; but seized on the notion, as Jesus taught and Paul did, that those who believed without seeing received boosters that improved their chances (John 20:29; Romans 8:24).  So that one day, somehow but certainly, their diseased selves would transform into the likeness of Jesus’ immortal body; and at long last not only see his true likeness (1John 3:2↔Psalms 17:5) but also the face of God (Job 19:26-27; Revelation 22:4).

¹ In terms of Abraham’s covenant of faith, not Mosaic Law (John 7:22↔Genesis 17:10-11).

² Think in terms of personal tutor or therapist.

³ It is suggestive that Jesus did not include the Sadducees, who were members of the upper, wealthy echelon of Judean society.  Though this sect became extinct after the Temple’s destruction in 70 CE, their Pharisaic counterparts evolved into modern Rabbinical Judaism.

   As with Matthew 23:30-32, Jesus seems to warn that Pharisaic strains could infect modern Judaism; much like Roman Catholic ones passed into Protestantism during the “Re-infection.”

⁴ Including Mary, presumed mediatrix of graces wedged in between Jesus and men according to Roman Catholic dogma.

⁵ Perhaps due to the extra portion Yahweh of hosts bestowed upon him (2Kings 2:9-15)?

⁶ Note the reference to Sodom and Gomorrah in Isaiah 1:10 and Luke 17:28-29, as if telling us that human evil will be endemic in men from beginning to end-times—in short, no earthly cure.

⁷ 144,000 ÷ 8,000,000,000 = .000018 or .0018%.