Unleavened Bread study series, pt. 3/7: when antitypical Balaam deprived the bread of life from Jesus’s body of adherents

The spiritual olive oil and grape juice, however, remained unhurt!

For the latter five days of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, determining the exact antitypical meanings is not without a degree of trickiness in the study, and as a necessary disclaimer, this author—myself (E.G.)—am just as in need of the continual guidance of the Holy Spirit of Jehovah of Hosts as any other individual person who seeks to live uprightly in the righteousness of God. Certain assessments of the “analytical”-decoding sort will not be resolutely 100%-certain assertions as if the earthly determines the heavenly, but rather shall be constituting the temporal effort to best explain—from my current, still-limited scope of knowledge—the substantive depth of prophecy—and especially apocalyptic prophecy—in fulfilling verity.

Now then, allow ourselves, if we will, to consider the third gospel dispensation period in greater detail—this post expands on what I already explained here previously:

Sabbath study, vii: the meaning of God’s appointed sabbath days

So to recap, this is the pericopal chiasm of the third epistle out of the seven letters to the seven angels of the seven assemblies in Rev. 2-3:¹

• a: ‘And to the angel of the assembly in Pergamum, write:

  • b: These things says He who is having the sharp two-edged sword: I have known your works, and where you do dwell—where the throne of the Adversary [is]—and you do hold fast my name, and you did not deny my faith even in the days in which Antipas [was] my faithful witness, who was put to death beside you, where the Adversary does dwell.

    • c: But I have against you a few things: that you have there those holding the teaching of Balaam,

      • d: who did teach Balak to cast a stumbling-block before the sons of Israel, to eat idol-sacrifices, and to commit whoredom;

    • c’: so have you, even you, those holding the teaching of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate.

  • b’: Repent! and if not, I come to you quickly, and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth.

• a’: He who is having an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies! to him who is overcoming, I will give to him to eat from the hidden manna, and will give to him a white stone, and upon the stone a new name written, that no one knows except him who is receiving.’

And this is the third seal opening account:²

• I: And when he opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature saying, ‘Come and behold!’

  • II: And I saw, and behold! a black horse, and he who is sitting upon it is having a balance in his hand.

    • III: And I heard a voice in the midst of the four living creatures saying, ‘A measure of wheat for a denary, and three measures of barley for a denary, and the oil and the wine you may not injure!’

And this is the account of the blowing of the third shofar a.k.a. trumpet:³

• I: And the third messenger did sound, and there fell out of the heaven a great star burning as [if] a lamp, and it did fall upon the third of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; and the name of the star is called Wormwood.

  • II: And the third of the waters did become wormwood, and many of the men did die of the waters, because they were made bitter.

First things first—the pericopal chiasm of the third letter must be grasped, because the seven epistles to the seven angels of the seven churches embody God’s message of mercy towards His people of the New Covenant from 31 A.D. into the close of probation, while the seal opening details describe the positional standing of the dispensations themselves as more or less an axis of reflection, on the other side of which are the shofar blowings revealing God’s judgments upon the obstinate human rejectors of His plan of salvation. Whether in the B’.i’.I pericopal chiasm of the Genesis Flood narrative, or the at-large chiasm of the Book of Jonah⁴ et al., or the fact that both Jonah’s message of mercy and Nahum’s prophecy of doom upon Nineveh revolved around the same testimonial witness of God as slow to anger,⁵ the biblical theme is clear: first comes God’s provided answer of assured mercy for His covenant people and all who are predestined to be ingrafted into it, and then comes to pass the fiery judgment upon the unrepentant wicked.

Here is a crash-course rundown on the meaning of the Biblical-Hebraically rooted symbols or otherwise generically the terms/concepts used in Revelation:

[epistle]

• sharp two-edged sword: the word of God⁶

• throne of the Adversary: literally, the (spiritual) throne of Satan, the outlet of principalities and powers⁷ from which the devil magnifies his power out of

• “[M]y faith”: not simply faith in Jesus, but rather literally the faith of Jesus⁸

• Antipas—portmanteau of:

  • “anti”: in the original Greek, it doesn’t mean simplistically/solely “opposition”/“against,” but rather “in the place of”

  • “patér”: father

  • Antipas therefore literally means essentially, “in the place of [the] father”—this cannot be referring to Jehovah the Father, because Jesus speaks of this particular Antipas as His martyr, and therefore the “father” here can only be an earthly self-styled and so-called “father” who presumptuously thinks to usurp the position of God the Father

• Balaam: this obviously is not referring to literal Balaam, but rather conveys how the literal ancient prophet-turned-perverter Balaam functioned as a type/shadow for this antitypical Balaam, a.k.a. a prophet who experienced the light of God and was providentially ordained to bless Jehovah’s covenant people but who ultimately chose to apostatize and conspire against them

• Balak: likewise, must be understood in type-antitype—the one who enforces and executes the blueprint for orchestrating apostasy amongst Jehovah’s covenant people that is put forth by Balaam his adviser

• sons of Israel: in the New Covenant context of the Christian assemblies, this would be the adherents of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ redeemed by His shed blood for mankind in repentance according to the circumcision of the heart⁹

• eating of idol-sacrifices: just as paganism corrupted ancient literal Israel, so too it corrupted the Christian church—pagan sacrifice became syncretized into Christianity under the auspices of “eucharistic transubstantiation” where soulless material objects are declared to be the literal presence/existence of God and sacrificed over and over and over in denial of the ONE-time sacrifice of Jesus Christ for sin¹⁰

• fornication: God’s people are likened unto a woman¹¹ and Jesus to a husband,¹² and so when the church apostatizes in idolatry by worshipping another God or even a syncretized alien misrepresentation of God, it is the spiritual equivalent of when a wife commits adultery to the dishonor of her husband¹³

• Nicolaitans—to decode the meaning with clarity:

  • literally, it means “adherent of Nikolaos”;

  • Nikolaos in the Greek means essentially “victorious over the laity” or “conquering the laity”

  • the Nicolaitans referenced here—same factional entity as the Nicolaitans mentioned in the letter to the angel of the Ephesian assembly! who were referred to also as “those who call themselves apostles and are not,” and as the “synagogue of Satan” in the letter to the angle of the Smyrnean assembly—thereby are signified as some group which preached a “conquering” over the laity (more on this shortly)

• hidden manna: Jesus—the bread of the life¹⁴—who is to be “eaten” (internalized¹⁵), and which is only “hidden” from those who chose to shut their hearts and stop their ears in self-hardened obstinate rejection of the gospel¹⁶

• white stone: a purified rock—again, likely referring to or at least bearing a connotation to Jesus, the cornerstone of salvation?

[seal]

• black horse: the color black in spiritual connotation is likely referential to judicial hardening, where Jehovah, instead of continuing to plead for human beings turning away from sins and spiritually “whiten” unto sanctification, instead hands them over to their own ungodly passions and allows them to accelerate their own choice to descend into perdition¹⁷

• [pair of] balance(s) in the hand: the scales of God’s justice, weighing whether the individual soul enriches itself in an earthly baggage of arrogance that crashes down, or whether it abases itself in walking after Jesus’s example of self-emptying¹⁸ penitence and is uplifted in the sight of God

• measure of wheat (and also three measures of barley) for a denary: a denarius in Jesus’s day represented the received wages of a day’s worth of labor,¹⁹ and so there is indicated here a time of scarcity—because wheat and barley in the covenantal context are the grains used to make bread, herein is indicated a prophesied time where the bread of life becomes scarce and is only barely preserved as what requires spending all of one’s daily earnings on, with no “money” left over to buy anything else

• oil: represents the Holy Spirit of God which spiritually anoints²⁰

• wine: represents, symbolically, that which evokes and produces an experience of intoxication, whether fresh grape juice—unleavened wine—unto godly joy within the context of sobriety, or alcoholic fermented wine unto a miasma of drunken stupor; in the context of Revelation’s seals, obviously in the covenantal context of God’s gifts it is the unfermented form associated with joy in wholesome communion with one’s Creator²¹

[trumpet]

• great star: a star in revelatory prophetic symbolism represents an angel a.k.a. a messenger in broad terms,²² so herein is showcased a certain “angel” (not necessarily a literal angel in heaven, but rather a messengerial figure who could be a human being) of mighty stature as some sort of a chieftain

• falling from heaven: seared apostasy²³ whereby one has already been enlightened in the truth of God and chose to reject its premises and corollaries permanently, hardened so much so that one renders it impossible for their heart to be brought unto penitence-driven communion with Jehovah ever again²⁴

• burning as a lamp: the lamp in biblical prophetic-apocalyptic symbolism represents the Holy Spirit,²⁵ and so we have here a certain apostate messenger who burns outwardly as if he is strengthened by the Holy Spirit, all while denying the power of God that leads men unto repentance²⁶

• rivers and fountains of water: the collection of freshwaters from precipitation brought forth by the clouds of the sky, which in biblical symbolism correspond to God’s doctrinal teachings²⁷

• Wormwood: representation of bitterness²⁸

Alright, and just like that, there we have the prophetic-apocalyptic symbols interpreted straight out of the scriptures!

To connect the dots together: the third gospel dispensation was—in a nutshell—fulfilled in the 313-538 A.D. time period. Once the Diocletianic Persecution of ten prophetic days (a.k.a. ten literal years) meted out to completion, Constantine as the emperor of imperial Rome officially legalized Christianity, albeit consolidated in the form of a top-down engineered color-revolutionary power grab scheme through a supposedly witnessed spurious miracle as the raison d’être.

Constantine purportedly was in vision and shown a sign where a cross of light was above the sun emblazoned with the inscribed words as translated from the Greek, “in this [sign], conquer”; or, as translated into the famous Latin phrase in hoc signo vinces that is commonly rendered as, “in this sign, you shall conquer.” This is the ideology of Nicolaism, a.k.a. “conquering the laity.”

Whether the vision was “real” or completely falsely fabricated is a largely superficial focus in the context of decoding the satanic deception: the end point was that the propagation of that satanic “sign” served its preplanned, intended utility of propelling forth a color revolution that catapulted into skyrocketed power a syncretistic merging of paganism within Christianity. Constantine the Great, therefore, is the fulfillment of the “Balaam” and “great star falling from heaven” spoken of in Revelation, a mighty chieftain who witnessed the power of God that leads men unto repentance (as Roman emperor, he obviously must have seen how the true Christian saints were pious in humility unto martyred death at the hands of Diocletian’s bloodthirsty savages), but instead of living up to that truth in his own life’s course of actions, he cynically chose to exploit the image of appealing to Christianity’s piety for its utility of co-opting and instrumentalizing (read: sacrigoating) its generic tenets into serving the objective of a self-centered power grab for whatever shadow Balak power ordered him to.

Constantine the Great’s reign was defined by the Nicene watershed: the Council of Nicea verdict and subsequent decrees effected the supremacy of the clerical priesthood to enforce its syncretistic doctrines of Christianized paganism, i.e. the “three persons” perverted so-called “Trinity” view of the Godhead in lieu of the biblical position that Jehovah is one person, the day of the sun (a.k.a. Sunday, the first day of the week) as the weekly day of rest in lieu of the biblical seventh-day sabbath, and Easter Sunday in lieu of Quartodecimanism, on top of systematically enforced corruption of the biblical manuscripts to expunge the most clear-cut, covenantally continuity-affirming portions of the Bible that were the most jarring thorns in the flesh of the Constantinian-Nicene Gnostic syncretists.

As shown in the pericopal chiasm of the third epistle, Balaamism and Nicolaism are two sides of the same coin: Balaamism represents doctrinal corruption unto perverted syncretic abominations, and Nicolaism represents the ideology of self-power maximization whereby religious devotion to the God of Heaven is reduced into a cesspool of clerical supremacy of artificially manufactured hierarchy defined by two classes: the conservative elite of initiated priests who by their own accords define the doctrine, and the everyday “catechumen” who are expected to obey the man-contrived dictates of their priests as if it were the commandments of God.

In antitype, the “Nikolaos” of Nicolaism therefore must have been the antitypical Balak, whose perditious desires the antitypical Balaam—Constantine the Great—institutionally spearheaded. Nicolaism was kept out of the Christian assemblies in the Apostolic Era when the earliest Christians of the 1st century had rejected its duplicitous overtures by reason that they were actively informed and instructed by Jesus’s apostles; and in the cir. 100-313 A.D. era of persecution in what corresponds to the time period of the second gospel dispensation described in the second epistle, seal opening, and trumpet blowing, the Nicolaitans—described as the synagogue of Satan—could only speak evil but not actually infiltrate institutionally into the church, because the Nicolaitans were Gnostic rabble-rousers who were too self-centered and basking in sensual pleasure to live up to the individual humility of accepting tortuously harrowing martyrdom—only when the martyrdom ceased were the Nicolaitans able to infiltrate into the church, catapulted into its institutions as fifth columns owed to the fallen messenger and antitypical Balaam, Constantine the Great.

The same Constantinian-Nicene satanic corruption of Christianity that took away the bread of the life from the people—in the form of banning (by civil decrees!) the New Covenantal antitypical observance of Passover and Unleavened Bread—is the one that magnified a paganism-syncretizing “priesthood” into an artificially manufactured level of hierarchical authority within Christendom to determine God’s doctrines as if they were priestly “fathers” in the place of Jehovah the Father.

And so, it came to pass that Nicenism uprooted the apostolic Christian faith throughout the East: Christians who remained in faithful observance of the weekly sabbath and annual feast days (namely Quartodecimanism) were hounded down and thrown out of their local churches by Constantinian-Nicene enforcers. The apostolic rejectors of Nicolaic clerical supremacy fared even worse: Donatists in north Africa were met with massacres from the imperial Roman army sent by Constantian-Nicene overlords for refusing to accept the latter’s earthly authority.

The Donatist movement almost definitely was what “Antipas” was a prophecy of: a movement that stood in the place of and rejected the authority of the earthly priests who call themselves “father.” Manifesting in the northern regions of Africa, it emerged as an “atavistic” reaction to the blank-check unqualified readmission of traitorous Christian ministers, affirming the pastoral principle articulated by Paul in I Timothy that elders must be verified in qualified integrity. The third letter out of the seven epistles is likely addressing specifically the remainder feeble remnant of faithful Christian adherents of Jesus Christ in the 476-538 A.D. era, in the interregnum between the collapse of imperial Rome and ascension of papal Rome: in the face of unprecedented anarchy and chaos, Jesus reminds them of what that which already came to pass in the martyrdom of Antipas manifested in the savage barbarism of Constantinian-Nicene persecution against the Donatists who rejected the interference of the emperor within the church.

Constantinian-Nicene blank-check pseudo-“forgiveness” is one of the core roots of the cancerous disease plaguing the mainstream of Christianity for over a millennia unto this very day: it takes a dualistic view of “forgiveness” to mean that actual undisputed grotesque apostates and perverters in high positions of power must be quick to be forgiven, even if they themselves are slow to repentance (if actually penitent at all). And so, the clerical elite—which according to its own circular reasoning ascribed to itself the right to such power beyond moral accountability—escapes justice over and over, because anyone who demands accountability is accused of being “unmerciful” and “unforgiving.” In doing so, the completed work of Jesus Christ’s sacrifice for sin—which fulfilled the Day of Atonement in unifying mercy and justice in one perfect sacrifice—is denied, as the unity of perfect mercy and perfect justice are dualistically separated according to the whims of ungodly men.

And yet, even in the late stage of that Constantinian-Nicene era of the 313-538 A.D. dispensation where the symbolic horse became blackened, there still remained intact the oil and wine in spite of Balaam-Constantine taking away the bread of life and poisoning the waters of salvation into bitterness. How is this possible? Because the anointing of the Holy Spirit²⁹ and joy in the sweetness of God’s redemptive salvation is only exclusively found in those true to Jehovah in truth and spirit,³⁰ whether amongst many or amongst a tiny, scattered few.

Even when the doctrinal waters of salvation and the bread of the life are deprived, the joy of communion with God bound by the blood of the New Covenant and marked by the reception of instructive teaching from the Holy Spirit, remains, and cannot be taken away from those who love their God with all their soul and all their strength.

One day, sure enough, the bread of the life shall be assuredly restored as the magnified centrality of God’s people when the latter rain is poured out to the fulfillment of the Noahic Covenant as Jehovah’s bow is seen in the cloud. Those of us who keep the sayings of Jesus into the end will eat of the hidden manna and receive a white stone which no man knows, saving the one who receives it. Many will be behooved to suffer martyrdom as the Donatists did, but God’s restoration of His completed body of faithfully penitent believers unto eternal life—out of all nations, ethnicities, and tongues—will be fulfilled in due time.

And [you] sons of Zion: joy and rejoice in Jehovah God!—indeed! set toward [you is] selfsame the teacher towards vindication, and descending towards [you shall be a] shower, teacher and latter rain in [the] first [month]! And filled [is] the floor [with] pure grain, and overflown [are] the presses [with] new wine and oil! —Joel 2:23-24

1. Rev. 2:12-17.

2. Rev. 6:5-6.

3. Rev. 8:10-11.

4. The first half of the at-large chiasm of the Book of Jonah reveals the typifying role of the scapegoat representing mercy, wherein Jonah was cast into the sea to stay for three days and three nights for the sake of God sparing the souls on the boat as a prototypical shadow pointing to how Jesus was cast outside the city to expiate sin away from God’s holy city unto the end of the ages, and that Jesus was dead in the grave for three days and three nights (reckoned in accordance with the erev-boqer precedent of inclusive reckoning) just as Jonah was in the belly of the great fish for three days and three nights. The second half of Jonah reveals God’s justice wherein the prophet traveled to Nineveh to preach Jehovah’s message of what would come to pass upon the great city if they did not repent.

5. Jon. 4:1-3; Nah. 1:1-3.

6. Eph. 6:17; Heb. 4:12.

7. Eph. 6:12.

8. Rom. 3:21-26; Gal. 2:15-16, 3:21-22; Rev. 14:12; cf. Mk. 11:22-23.

9. Rom. 2:28-29; Gal. 3; Phil. 3:3.

10. Heb. 9:27, 10:5-14.

11. Eph. 5:22-33.

12. Rev. 19:1-9.

13. Ezek. 16.

14. Jn. 6:32-35, 47-51.

15. Jer. 15:16.

16. II Cor. 4:1-6.

17. Isa. 6:9-12; Mk. 4:11-12; Matt. 13:13-15; Lk. 8:10; Rom. 1:18-32, 11:7-10.

18. Phil. 2:5-11.

19. Cf. Matt. 20:1-16.

20. Cf. Ex 30:22-33; I Sam. 16:13; Isa. 61:1-3; Jas. 5:14-15.

21. Ps. 104:15; cf. Jl. 1:5-13

22. Job 38:7; Phil. 2:14-15; Rev. 1:20b.

23. Cf. I Tim. 4:1-5.

24. Heb. 6:4-6.

25. Rev. 4:5b.

26. Rom. 1:16-17; II Tim. 3:1-7.

27. Deut. 32:2.

28. Deut. 29:14-18; Prov. 5:3-4; Jer. 9:15-16, 23:15; Lam. 3:15; Am. 5:6-9; 6:12.

29. I Jn. 2:20.

30. Jn. 4:24.