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Bible Study Course Lesson 10 – 12
Thousands of years ago, thousands of years even before the creation of Adam, the Lord created seven great angels (Psalms 29:7) by dividing the light of Himself into seven pieces (1 John 1:5). And it has been the job of the seven, from the beginning, to bring seven lights to the world.
And as priests of the Lord, their job was to take His words and carry them to the children of God – to be His angels, messengers. These were the stars/flames/high-priest-angels, and they were sources of guidance/light/truth respectively, (Genesis 1:14-15/Isaiah 10:17/Malachi 2:7, respectively).
So the priest angels were commanded by God to shine a light on the inward parts (2 Corinthians 4:6), which the spirit is meant to do on every level (Proverbs 20:27). Thus, these seven priest angels were sent by the true Light – which is why we see them symbolized as a rainbow.
We see them as a slightly different symbol as the seven candlesticks of Revelation 1, the seven flames on one candlestick in Revelation 4:5, and as the seven churches of Revelation 2-3. But in each case it’s clear that these are the flames of fire which the Lord divided from His own flame.
Most of the time, God speaks to the seven as a group, addressing them as the “watchers” (Daniel 4:17), or “the eyes of God”, or the “gods of this world”, and so on. But in Revelation 2-3, God has an individual message for each of them.
Most people, reading these chapters, think these were messages to the seven churches. But if you read what it actually says, these messages were not sent to churches – remember, there is no such thing! – but very explicitly to the angel IN CHARGE of the called out ones in that region! (Revelation 2:1, etc.).
Now as has been said, these seven churches were contemporary churches in modern Turkey, ruled over by angels that in some way reminded God of these seven; and also seven consecutive churches, which is to say, to the true church as it appeared in the generation of each high priest angel in turn.
The 4/12/70 beast angels were meant to enforce righteousness on this Earth by creating a clean beast – and yet each of the beasts they created were unclean (leopard, bear, lion, eagle, dragon, etc.). Because they valued only the strength to control others, not the inward strength such as the ox had.
But the 7 priest angels were meant to teach righteousness on the Earth by creating a clean heart within that beast. To shine a light on the eyes of man, so that the light could enter the eyes, and cleanse the heart (Isaiah 9:2, Luke 1:76-79).
Yet they created unclean hearts, further defiling the very beasts they were meant to cleanse. Where did they go wrong? Matthew 23:25-27. The beast angels did their jobs badly, making the outward parts unclean; the priest angels saw this, and were naturally troubled.
They should have left the outward parts to the beast angels – no matter how poorly they did it. For if the priest angels had done their job properly, the beast angels would have had no work to do anyway (Matthew 15:17-20). If they had cleansed the heart, it would not have mattered if the beast had cleansed the body.
But instead, the priest angels got involved in the government and became so distracted with the external things, they failed to cleanse the internal things which was their job; making it ultimately impossible to cleanse the external things. For the external can not be permanently clean as long as the internal is unclean.
BLIND EYES
The symbolism of light shining on the heart is fine, but how does one actually bring light to the world? Psalms 119:130. They bring light by making God’s words enter the hearts of man. To write His words on their hearts, in other words.
And so in practical terms, what we’re really saying is the seven were sent to create religion. Because it is through religion that this has always been done. But you think of religion so narrowly that you miss the much, much bigger picture this reveals to us. For God is not the Father of the Jews only, nor just of the Abrahamites, but of all mankind (Acts 17:24-29).
And the seven eyes of God were not sent to Israel, but to the whole Earth (2 Chronicles 16:9). To carry the words of their Father to all of His offspring, wherever they may be groping after Him. Key word “groping” – for this is a textbook case of the blind leading the blind. For what else can be blind, but… eyes? (Matthew 15:14).
And yet these are angels; they behold the face of God, how can they be blind? Well, these are angels. But they are also beings. And by that, I mean we assume they have perfect memories. But where does it say that the average angel’s memory is any better than ours?
Indeed, if their memories were perfect, why would the angel be commanded to “remember”? Revelation 3:1-2. We assume they can do high math in their heads, know all things, see all things; but why can’t they be just as flawed, petty, vindictive, forgetful, distracted, and so on as the humans they were sent to guide?
We are made in the same image, after all… and we know for a fact they do not see the things even we see (1 Peter 1:12). We know that the angels are different in levels of wickedness; and likewise in levels of righteousness, and understanding (Daniel 10:21).
Thus, the more wicked angels cannot be wise and understanding (Psalms 111:10). Those angels who are in any way struggling against the Lord cannot have wisdom (Proverbs 21:30). With this in mind, read Job 28:20-28.
Wisdom and understanding is “hid from the eyes of all living” – thus, angels who are the eyes of God in charge of all living things! Wisdom and understanding are hidden from “the fowls of the air”, whom we have established already symbolize angels (compare to Revelation 18:2, etc.).
We know that these things are hidden from the KINGS and PROPHETS (Luke 10:23-24). What are prophets, if not messengers of the Lord? And thus the angelic kings and priests of this world have not seen these things! Which is what Gabriel already told us in Daniel 10!
So what justifies the assumption that angels are wise and understanding and knowledgeable, any more than your average human? They are vastly older, yes, which gives them a distinct advantage. Just as there is an advantage in being a Jew… but they wasted it (Romans 3:1-2, because of Romans 2:17-29). Note particularly they believed themselves to be “guides of the blind”.
So does their age and priority and power automatically mean they are better? Job 32:9. Note the apparent redundancy; and as it happens, this doesn’t use the word “man” at all, that being implied, but not stated in the text. What it actually says is “the great are not always wise; and the elders do not always understand judgment.
Thus it applies equally well to great angels and elder angels! Kings and priests! And we KNOW these very angels do not “understand judgment” (Psalms 82). Because with them as with us, it is the inspiration of the Almighty that gives understanding.
So then it is irrational to assume that angels were all paying attention when the Lord gave them their instructions; that they remembered exactly what was said, and are capable of repeating it verbatim… for evil angels are by their very name, “bad messengers”!
Thus, blind leaders of the blind.
I HAVE OBEYED THE LORD
When you call your children together and give them the same instructions at the same time, each of them will walk away with a different understanding of what you want. Each of them will do the same job differently, and all of them will claim – and believe – they are doing exactly what you asked!
So in the beginning, God called the first eight angels to Him (the high priest plus his bride, the seven) and gave them the law, and told them to teach righteousness, and here’s what that means. Each one of them said “yes, sir”, and then proceeded to do what HE thought God meant; which is to say, what he thought was best.
Yet to this day, all of them would tell you, “I have obeyed the commandment of the Lord!” and believe it to be true! When in fact, they only obeyed their perception of the law. Their interpretation of the law. And only those laws they felt were most important.
Just like the story of Saul and Samuel; God told Saul to utterly destroy Amalek. He was explicit – nothing was to be saved alive. Nothing. Yet Saul did the exact opposite and then said “I have performed the commandment of the LORD!”
Saul believed he had done God’s will, even as he was leading the sheep he had spared in direct rebellion against God’s command! Compare this to Matthew 7:21-23. These people were not being facetious… they were actually shocked that God wasn’t rewarding them for their service!
Which is why He must teach these kings; show them the things they haven’t seen or heard (Isaiah 52:15). Because they were blinded and deaf. For all of the angels call Him “Lord”, and tremble (James 2:19)… but how many don’t do the things that He said, in the way He said to do them?
It is this trend to interpret God’s commandments which every unbroken spirit has, which has created every religion in the world. And yet God knew that this would happen, obviously. He knew that, individually, these angels’ grasp of His laws would be weak.
Which is why God had meant for them, specifically the elders, to work together (1 Peter 5:1-7); to pool their understandings and find the true words He had meant, just as you must put a rainbow back through a prism in order to have the full spectrum of white light again.
Instead, they squabbled and bickered, and focused more on who was right than on what God had actually said. Because they, like us, have pride (Ezekiel 28:17). And then they in turn proceeded to tell their own underlings “judge righteous judgment, and here’s how”.
Those underlings in turn, having half-listened, passed it on to their own followers, and so on – through most likely seven echelon of angels. Every one believing they heard exactly what was said, and every one hearing something a little different (John 9:41).
ANGELIC TELEPHONE
So let’s do a thought experiment. Go to seven random people, and give them a copy of the ten commandments. Tell them to study it overnight, then take the original back. Then have them write it down as they remember it.
Then have each of them give their version of the ten commandments to seven more people; and so on. Do this, say, seven times. This is like the phone game, but it’s actually a phone pyramid. Now, you have a pyramid of 7 + 7×7 (49) + 7x7x7 (343) + 7x7x7x7 (2,401) + (16,807) + (117,649) + (823,543).
This isn’t how it’s actually arranged – it’s actually captains of thousands and whatnot, but this is easier to visualize. Anyway, in the lowest rank, let’s imagine we compared the texts of the ten commandments as written down by angel #5617 with the text as written down by angel #102,057.
Remember, this is the seventh generation of a text written from memory, based on the text written from the memory of his own angelic head, based in turn on his head’s version, and so on. Now how similar do you suppose these two texts would be?
I doubt you would be able to tell they came from the same original document, much less identify the original number of laws, or anything significant about their content. Because with each generation errors will creep in that will infect the entire tree underneath it.
And yet members of each tree would usually have recognizably similar beliefs to others within that tree; if the 6th archangel understood something wrong, all of his subordinates would tend to share the same misunderstanding, so by the time you got to the last level you might not recognize these as the original words of God but there would still be similarities with each other.
As I’m sure you guessed by now, I just described all religion. Not all Christian religion, but ALL RELIGION, EVERYWHERE. All of these religions are serving the true God as they understand Him, or specifically, as the angel in charge of their religion remembers and understands what God said.
And since all these angels are teaching their religions to obey the true God – as they understand Him and as they remember what was said, and as they prioritize what they feel He values most – who can really say these are false religions, evil religions, religions of the devil?
Which is why we are specifically commanded in Exodus 22:28 “thou shalt not speak evil of the gods”, the angels of these religions. The Lord does so throughout the Bible because He is “a great God, and a great King above all gods” (Psalms 95:3).
But you are not; and you should always bear in mind that they are doing the best they know how… that all their ways are right in their own eyes, and most importantly… that they are another Man’s servant, and not yours to judge (Romans 14:4).
God is able to make Dagon stand; and if it becomes necessary, God is able to dissolve the spirit that Baal is made of into nothingness – or if he repents, to make even Baal’s sins to be washed away in His own blood (Revelation 5:9).
It is enough for you to say that Dagon is not your Elohim, and worship the Lord – and let others do what they like (Joshua 24:15). Respect all authority and power (Romans 13:7), whether human or divine; speak no more evil of the dignitaries, mouthing off about things you don’t understand (2 Peter 2:9-12).
For you literally have no earthly idea what it is like to be made of spirit, or how hard it must be to do their jobs. And they, like God, are in heaven, and you are on Earth; so let your words be few (Ecclesiastes 5:1-6).
WORKING TOGETHER
We cannot see what goes on behind the scenes, in the world of angels. But we do see in Revelation 1-3, that the churches of the world are led by angels, inspiring and motivating and interpreting God’s original words to them. Imperfectly, as those chapters clearly show.
Because when God said to the angels “thou shalt not kill”, He left the meaning open to interpretation. Did He mean “thou shalt not murder”, as in, “don’t kill for no good reason”? Did He mean “thou shalt not kill humans”, or were animals included as well? Did He mean “thou shalt not kill good people”, but killing infidels was laudable?
Each of the world’s religions developed a very different take on this very simple question. The Jains and many other religions are strict vegetarians because their angel heard God say “thou shalt not kill anything”.
The Protestant angel heard “thou shalt not murder”, but killing in self-defense or to protect others is righteous. The Catholic and Islamic angels heard “thou shalt not kill righteous people”, and inferred that God would praise the slaughter of heretics and infidels. But what did God actually say? Isaiah 65:25.
In this ideal sense, the Jain angel, the Quaker angel, and other pacifists like them interpreted this single commandment more accurately in line with God’s ultimate wishes. And yet, by focusing on God’s ultimate wishes he missed the fairly obvious fact that this was a future goal, and that for now “the LORD is a man of war” (Exodus 15:3).
So in this sense, the Protestant angel has a better grasp on God’s intentions for the present than the Jain angel; and yet here, too, he overlooked the fact that the LORD is a man of war – not His servants. And that He takes His own vengeance (Deuteronomy 32:35) and doesn’t want US doing it for Him (Romans 12:19)!
And so in this way, the pacifist Quaker angel better understood the practical aspect of this commandment than the Protestant angel. And yet here, too, he missed something – for it is also written that when we come to His kingdom, we will war alongside of Him (John 18:36).
There is no place in pacifist theology for that statement. Yet these and all other apparently conflicting statements by the same God must be reconciled in the mind of the head of a religion, if that religion is to reflect the truth of God! Because anything less than the full light of God will not produce sons of God!
The bottom line is that we will fight, as necessary, against the evildoers but only when our own obedience is full. Only after we have proved ourselves to be doing so for the right reasons. Then we should be ready to avenge disobedience with our Lord (2 Corinthians 10:6).
Acknowledging – as should the angels – that we are not without sin yet, and hence should be cautious of where we throw stones (John 8:7). And always working towards the day when no nation shall learn war any more (Micah 4:3).
FULL SPECTRUM TRUTH
See, there is a simple answer – that any of them could have found – but they were too busy arguing about the truth to learn the truth even though each of them had a piece of the whole truth. Just like all the religions they fostered.
These angels were sent to be lights of the world, and they were. But as we see in the rainbow… each angel brought a different COLORED light to the world, which however accurate was necessarily only a PART of the light of God!
Plants cannot grow well in only red light, only blue light, only green light. If they have to choose only one color, blue is best, but far inferior to blue and red together; red, alone, is far inferior to blue alone and yet plants do best with more red than blue (at a 5-1 ratio, oddly).
All the colors are needed, some less than others, but plants need the full spectrum of the sun’s light to grow optimally healthy. So if an angel only understands and teaches a seventh of the truth of God, however perfectly he might do it, the result will be sickly and spindly vegetation… vegetation which pictures mankind! (Isaiah 40:6-8).
And yet, following the pattern of plants, some colors of light – the understandings of certain angels – are far more important to plants than others. So while, say, an angel who understands the law is vital to our growth, he’s far more effective when paired with an angel who understands faith as well; even if he may need a 5-1 ratio of law to faith to be optimally spiritually healthy (I’m totally making this up, but you get my point).
And yet all the light of God was important; so an angel who understands symbolism would be very useful, but only that angel would not be able to grow healthy plants. An angel who understands patience would be very beneficial… but not without being paired with an angel who understood zeal.
We need the whole armor of God, not just one or two pieces. Surely the sword and the shield are the most important, but shoes come in real handy as well. So it is likewise with the light of God – and so it is with the seven spirits of God.
Each of these angels took God’s words and, when passing them on to his underlings, tinted the words of God with his own color. As God knew he would – which is why God wanted them to collaborate to find the whole truth.
But because he only has a fraction of the truth, the Islamic angel, who only heard Psalms 144:1, simply cannot understand how God can be pleased when you ignore the sins committed by the faithless; to his point of view, pacifism in the face of infidels is itself a sin!
The Catholic angel heard Luke 14:23 and concluded that he should force heretics and unbelievers to convert to Christianity, using torture if necessary; but didn’t also hear that he should “let the blind alone” (Matthew 15:14), or “let God judge them” (1 Corinthians 5:13).
Meanwhile the angel who thought God said “thou shalt not kill anything”, was horrified by the Catholic angel who burned heretics at the stake. The Islamic angel didn’t see the problem with killing heretics, although he wouldn’t necessarily have tortured them first. The Catholic angel thought the Buddhist angel was a pansy. Just exactly like any three humans would have done.
Now, if they had been willing to listen to one another instead of bickering, they might have found the truth; if they had not been so quick to label their brethren as evil adversaries, not so quick to assume rebellious intentions and genuinely worked to understand their “fellow servants”… well, the world would not have its foundations out of place (Psalms 82:5).
Yet as always, I must stress that all of these religions believe they are saving souls in Christ’s name (whatever name they call Him) for the glory of His Father… no matter what they call the Father or how they go about it, they are attempting to fulfill their commission of bringing light to the world.
Even if much of that light is darkness. For when you shine only a seventh of the spectrum of light… necessarily, it doesn’t light a room very well as it’s 6/7ths darkness! And when the eye over a religion is darkness… how great is that darkness? (Matthew 6:23).
SEVEN RELIGIONS
Revelation 1 shows us that the churches of the world are ruled over by seven chief angels; these churches in Asia were types of those great angels, because no one else would be working directly for the Lord, in His right hand.
Thus these seven archangels are in charge of the spiritual affairs of the world. This means if we were to look at a map of the world, we would be able to count seven fundamental religions into which most of the world can be slotted.
Looking at the chart above, you can see that the biggest religions dominate the world. Notice how large the gap is between “Chinese traditional religion” (Taoism) with 394 million, and the next significant one, with only one tenth of the adherents – Sikhism at 30 million
Source: Wikipedia “List of Religious Populations”
I don’t count ethnic and African traditional religions because these are “bucket” categories for a wide variety of localized beliefs; likewise we can ignore the category of “atheist/agnostic”, since this too is a bucket category of beliefs too broad to categorize as a unit.
So setting those aside, the less numerous religions like Judaism and Shinto are clearly distinguishable, in terms of followers, from the greater religions above – by a factor of at least 10. So whom do we have above that clear division, religions with at least 394 million adherents?
There are, in order, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism. So, five religions. But Christianity is a definition far too broad for a category like this – at the very least, it must be broken up into Protestant and Catholic, and probably also into Eastern Orthodox. Suddenly we have exactly seven major religions.
Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, Islam, Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist. We could fiddle with these groupings some, combine Catholic and Orthodox and split Islam into Shiite and Sunni, but however you slice it you come up with about this number. What are the odds?
So these facts alone prove that there are seven(ish) religions of the world, each with their own color of the rainbow that they teach their people. Thus, the angels are literally the light of these seven religions, and God’s truth filters down to the world through them.
…but not very well.
Which is why… the light of God doesn’t have to reach mankind by this channel.
THEE ONLY HAVE I KNOWN
It might be tempting to say that since every religion is some angel or another’s take on God, how do we know that the Bible isn’t corrupted with an angel’s viewpoint? I mean, what makes us so special? The Muslims have the Quran; the Jews have the Mishnah and Talmud; the Mormons have their book; nearly every religion has its sacred revelation.
So what makes the Bible more than just another angel’s opinion? Because Israel alone had dealt directly with the Lord who created the worlds! Amos 3:1-2. No other nation had ever had the Creator God speak to them from a mountain burning with fire!
The Bible was given to the only people who had firsthand knowledge of God. Every other holy writ was revision or a retelling of the Bible, inspired by the angel of that religion to codify what he believed was the perfect truth of God.
The Apocrypha is the additions Hillel thought would improve the Bible. The Bhagavad is the “Bible” that the Hindu angel thought his people needed to see to conform to his understanding of what God was trying to get us to be like.
The Quran is the additions that Gabriel thought the Bible needed; the edits and explanations that made it best suited to his people, his region, his times. It doesn’t even claim to be the revelation of God, but is the revelation Gabriel was permitted to give to his people:
Say (O Muhammad Peace be upon him ): “Whoever is an enemy to Jibrael (Gabriel) (let him die in his fury), for indeed he has brought it (this Quran) down to your heart by Allah’s Permission, confirming what came before it [i.e. the Taurat (Torah) and the Injeel (Gospel)] and guidance and glad tidings for the believers.” [Quran 2:97, Mohsin Khan translation].
Likewise, most other holy books are the musings and thoughts of their founders or prophets, or revelations by angels to those people; the book of Mormon, Ellen G. White, Zoroaster, etc., all claimed to have visions or dreams given by angels, like Daniel did.
But few if any religious revelations presume to be the words of God Himself. Only the Bible dares – because only the Bible is – the words of the Lord (Deuteronomy 9:10). So these are not the words of a prophet, or of a wise man nor even an angel; these are the words of the Lord God Himself.
The Lord did send Israel an angel later, when He grew frustrated with them (Exodus 33:2-3). But the words in the Bible were His own words, written at times with His own finger (Psalms 147:19-20). And no other religion has that! As I said, I can’t find any that even claim to have it.
The Lord chose Peleg, Eber, Abraham, Isaac, and finally Israel and his children as a pet project, one that was not handled through intermediate angels – at least, not all of the time. Because He wanted to make sure this one job got done right.
And so He made sure the Bible got written as He wanted it, to say what it needed to say (2 Timothy 3:16). He protected it through the ages, preserved it through dispersion and copying to prevent frauds, to ensure that mankind always had access to His own words, unsullied by human or angelic taints.
He let an angel write the Quran or the Bhagavad; He didn’t spell-check it, any more than He spell-checked the KJV translation of the Bible. Because part of the point was to let these angels prove, if they could, that they knew what the Father wanted!
And if the Lord had meddled, it would defeat the point! (Psalms 50:16-23). Note that He “kept silence” while they did all these things. While they forgot God! So why, after doing those things, are they “taking His covenant in their mouth”, when they don’t even remember what the Father told them to do?
But in the Bible, we have the things the Lord our God, creator of all those other Gods, felt were important. We have the unedited words of the covenant with the Father preserved for us intact because Israel alone was the people whom the Lord chose to be His, to guide personally (Deuteronomy 32:12).
He made sure it was always possible to find Him (Isaiah 55:6). Most importantly, He made sure the truth was inspired for them in the books of the OT, and preserved for us… Something He did for no other nation (Deuteronomy 4:5-8).
So yes, there is a natural temptation to say that there is truth in all religions, and that we should merge the best ideas from Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, and so on all back into one perfect whole; but the truth is not the average of those ideas.
We, alone of all peoples, do not need to reassemble the rainbow; for we have the one true Light of the world, from which all of those other religions took their ideas, then compromised and corrupted and adapted to prioritize what they thought was best.
So truly… blessed are we who have heard the word of God, and keep it (Luke 11:28).
WHEAT AMONG THE TARES
Consider the parable of Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43. Note that Jesus specifically mentioned that the reapers were angels, who gathered the tares together into “bundles”, separating them at the end times from the wheat, which represented the saints.
The bundles were then burned; and we know that burning is a symbol of testing and purifying (1 Corinthians 3:13-15). So how, in reality, do the angels gather together tares into a bundle for testing? You’ve probably already guessed… Churches.
Churches are not here to teach us about God; Churches are where God gathers together all those not fit to be in a house for testing. He binds them into a bundle, close together, where their flaws and weaknesses can be challenged and tested and to see if any of them can survive the fire.
And as they sit in that famine of the word of the Lord that is religion, and church (Amos 8:11-13), if any of them do realize that the Lord is outside the door, knocking (Revelation 3:20), and let Him in, then He leads them out from under the authority of the angel of that church, and into a house (Isaiah 52:7-11).
The wheat stood out from the first, and so went straight into His barn, His store-house. But the tares were burned one more time lest He be accused of judging on the appearance (John 7:24). Just so that God could be absolutely sure He didn’t miss any wheat that deserved to enter into His rest.
And so angels gather into Churches; which means Churches are not mostly good people with a few tares; rather, Churches exist to gather tares into bundles for burning – and it is, exactly as it seems to be, a group made up entirely of tares with maybe, just maybe, one or two sad strands of sketchy wheat mixed in (Luke 11:52, 3 John 1:9-10). That is the purpose of Church and always has been!
And in those Churches, when someone prays to the Father of all Gods, it has only one meaning. Whatever name that angel gave his followers to use, his religion is meant to honor the Father, and prayers to the Father pass through him.
That angel’s job is to gather the prayers of all the people of that place, whether addressed to Zeus, Allah, Dios, or Ra, and “beat them small” (Leviticus 16:12), and send them all to the proper address, and every angel knows what that address is (James 2:19).
This is the only way that in every nation those who do righteousness and fear Him can be accepted by Him! (Acts 10:34-35). This is why it sometimes takes weeks or years for a prayer to reach God, as in the case of Cornelius, a Gentile whose prayer HAD to go through a demon, for he was cut off from God! (Ephesians 2:12).
Which means if a man repents in the name of Brahma, the angel in charge of his area hears it, condenses it, and passes it up the chain of command for consideration if he is sufficiently impressed with the sincerity to do so (Ecclesiastes 5:6).
But he doesn’t give it directly to God, himself; rather, he gives it to his own head, who in turn passes it to his head, who gives it to the Lord, the priest of the most high God, for consideration (Jonah 2:7). The Lord, whose job it is to forgive people in all nations (Psalms 62:12).
And then the Lord, if sufficiently impressed Himself, asks His Father to forgive them (Matthew 10:32-33). Presenting their incense which the porter angels prepared before His own Father! Remember, the Lord was the intermediary for the world, the last barrier between them and God; the veil in the temple which was rent for us (Hebrews 10:20).
And so Israel prayed to the Lord, and the Lord – if moved by the prayer – passed the prayer on to the Father. And so the Philistines prayed to Dagon their Elohim who, if they felt they needed to, passed the prayer to the Lord at one of their meetings (Job 1:6, 2:1, 1 Kings 22:19-23, etc.).
Just as entering the physical temple required surmounting several barriers – courts, walls, porters, priests, doors, and finally the veil itself – just as it took years to get an audience with Caesar, if you could even get on the schedule – so likewise getting your prayer before God takes getting past many layers of angels and ultimately, past the Lord Himself.
But that’s only if you’re in the world – not if you’re in His house (John 16:25-27). Because by giving the apostles the holy spirit and making them a part of His Father’s house, Jesus was bypassing that chain of command completely, and telling us not to even bother telling Him our prayers – but to pray directly to the Father, which no one, not even the angels, can do! (Romans 8:14-17).
We, alone, have access to the most holy place without passing through countless echelon of angels and barriers to access. For we can walk boldly onto the sea of glass, to approach the throne of grace for our request (Hebrews 4:16, 10:19-22).
Not by works; but by faith. Not because we are more righteous than our angelic elder brethren, but because our sins of ignorance are covered by the grace of Christ. Because we loved the head, and joined ourselves unto Him, we have been granted the right to bypass the authority of the rest of the body that still binds the rest of the world.
Because we believed the true proverb: “It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in princes” (Psalms 118:9).
THE DEAD BODY
Religion is summed up in Colossians 2. Read verses 4-8, and notice Paul’s point is to contrast the worship of Christ, with the worship of ideas about Christ. But why would he focus on his preeminence in verses 9-10? Because the Godhead – the Elohim – is all contained in Him. Which is to say, all the principalities and powers are part of His body.
Thus, He is the Head of all principality and power. Now specifically, that “principality” means “the princes of the Earth”, the archangels. So what verse 10 is really saying is that all the angels and all the humans are part of the body of Christ, for He created all of them and paid for their sins with His own flesh – His human body.
But verse 11 shows that by baptism, we can “put off” this body. Literally of course that’s our own corruptible flesh, but that’s not the context here – the context is the former body of the Godhead. The totality of the Churches who claim to worship Jesus and the Father in some form, by some name!
For if we look at the Ekklesia in heaven as an innumerable company of angels (Hebrews 12:22), and if that church is symbolized by Sarah (Galatians 4:24-26), then there really is a counterpart to the bride of Abraham in heaven, a true “queen of heaven”.
But like Sarah herself, that heavenly counterpart, the angelic assembly in heaven, laughed at God when He said that Isaac (the Lord) would be his heir! (Genesis 17:22). And when Ishmael likewise mocked that same Lord, his place was no more found in heaven (Genesis 21:9-10).
Likewise, Satan was anti-Christ, opposed to Christ, and deceived at least a third of the stars of God to be anti-Christ as well. And so the son of bondage was cast out so that Isaac could inherit all things. Isaac, who means “to laugh”.
He made his mother laugh in a good way… and his brother laugh in a mean way. Just as Jesus makes His enemies to trip over the very stone that His friends use as the foundation of their houses (1 Peter 2:6-8, 1 Corinthians 3:11).
So the very religions that were meant to elevate and exalt the Lord their Creator, and God His Father, have tripped over the rock and cast it out of their religions! And so of course their houses, their religions, must fall!
Which is why through baptism we have an opportunity to “put off” that body of the authority of angels (Galatians 3:19, Hebrews 2:2-5). Note that the world to come is not put in subjection to the angels… because the present one IS! In that world, God’s will is done as He wants it done. In this one… not so much (Luke 11:2).
So through the death of our body within THAT body, we set aside ALL the rituals and traditions and authority of the world, and connect ourselves directly to the HEAD of the body! Colossians 2:12-15. Because just as Israel had to symbolically die to be freed of Egypt, so likewise we must symbolically die to be freed from the authority of angels!
Jesus’ perfect life, death, and resurrection “spoiled the principalities and powers” – those angels, the seven and the four/twelve/seventy – and made a shew of THEM instead of us! Paul was a spectacle to the angels, and the world, but now Christ has put the angels themselves up as a spectacle, triumphing over them, and we join together in that triumph!
And that is why (verses 16-18) we are not obligated to follow the rituals or customs of the world or its religions. Because following any of these religious rituals, whether they be of Judaism or Hinduism, rosaries or sacrificing virgins, is the worship of angels!
These rituals are men “intruding into those things he has not seen”, puffed up by his heart-dominated mind, thinking – or following an angel who thinks – that he knows better than the Lord what is true!
We needn’t, and shouldn’t, follow them, for we have the words of God delivered to us by the one true Word, the one perfect Messenger!
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
If the population of mankind is a human body, then Christ is the head and the seven vertebrae in the neck are the seven spirits and the twelve vertebrae in the back are the twelve porters. For the seven are messengers… and all messages to the body from the head necessarily pass through the spinal cord in the neck and back!
Now for the sake of argument, let’s say that Protestantism is the right hand of God and Islam is the right leg; so if you’re a Baptist, you’re doing God’s will. You’re following the interpretation of God’s will as understood by the middle knuckle of the little finger of God’s body!
All religions, even the most evil and absurd ones, are worshipping the Divine as understood by the angels in charge of that religion. The entire body – the whole Earth – is part of Christ who made all things (Colossians 1:15-17).
Part of the body Christ who made all things, not necessarily of the body of Christ who was resurrected from the dead with a new spirit body! (Hebrews 10:5). Which is to say, a body made of new spirits. A new bride.
And in Colossians 2:19 we have the opportunity to bypass that old body, the heavenly one Jesus had before He became a man, the authority of the 7 and 70. The brides He had married in the OT, Judah and Israel. He, the head of that body, died as a spirit being to become a man, allowing the sheep to be scattered (Matthew 26:31).
And those who belong to that old body are still dead in their sins, because they are unclean by reason of a dead body (Numbers 19:11-13). Note that it requires “water of separation” – baptism – to cleanse yourself from that dead body, a process which won’t be complete until the seventh day, at the resurrection!
Yet spiritually, when we take the water of separation upon us, we are cut out of that old dead body, and freed from the authority of their governments, spiritual and physical, for we henceforth take our orders directly from the head of that body – not from the fingers.
Why learn secondhand, corrupted versions of the truth we could get straight from the mouth of the Lord? Why on Earth (Colossians 2:20-23) would you again be subject to their laws about days and foods and rituals after the commandments of men which they learned from angels? (Acts 7:53).
But the Protestants are choosing to attach themselves to Christ through the hand, through the color blue, which is fine for the secondfruits. Fine for the Old Covenant which was administered by angels anyway! (Exodus 33:1-4).
Thus, the religion of Moses, as practiced (not as received in the Bible) was in truth the religion of an angel (Exodus 23:20-25). A good angel, as such things go – but an imperfect one. Hence the body of Moses was a shadow of things to come… but the true body was Christ’s new body, not the old one of which they were a part!
So it is fine to obey angels if you’re OC! That’s why God created them, to lead physical people to God in a physical way! To lead them close enough to God that Jesus could take over and bring them the rest of the way; to be the seven spirits of God, the seven lights over the seven churches of Earth!
But we have an opportunity to detach from them and to connect ourselves directly to Christ, to completely bypass the upper back (the twelve beast angels) and the seven neck vertebrae (the seven spirits of God) and be joined to the head.
Why then would we wish to be subject to ordinances of the world, customs and traditions, judgments of angels from which Christ has made us free? Why seek bondage to a Church or to its angel, when we have the right to call God “Abba, Father” and follow the simple rule “walk before me, and be ye perfect”?
So if you want to be a part of the Elohim, part of the New Covenant, part of the house of God, you have to shed the baggage of the religions of this world, bypass all authority and power, and attach yourself directly to the Head of the body and get to know Him for yourself!
And think about one last thing… if we are, indeed, joined unto the Head… what are we? How would God symbolize righteous saints on His head? Well, we know they’re something every male body has. We know they’re something that is dressed in white, for the saints will be. We know there must be 144,000 of them. So what symbol could they be in the head of the body of Christ?
Fun fact: there are between 90,000-150,000 hairs on the human head. And what color are the hairs on Jesus’ head and beard? Revelation 1:14. And the hairs of your head do not need to communicate with your head via the seven vertebrae in your neck do they?
Think about that. This is why the hairs of our head are numbered (Luke 12:7). And this is why not one hair of our head will perish (Luke 21:18). This is why you should rise up before the white-haired man (Leviticus 19:32), for it symbolizes the righteousness of the saints on the head of God (Proverbs 16:31).
That last verse makes you look at the “crown of glory” in Hebrews 2:7-9 a little differently, doesn’t it? For the bride of Christ, if she be virtuous, is a crown to her husband (Proverbs 12:4). But the bride that made him ashamed – the Churches of the seven – is rottenness to His bones – the 7 and 12 and others.