Messianic Mathematics with the Numbers Six, Seven and Eight

I don't mean to write posts like this but I really think that we have to start to acknowledge basic religious truths that were held at all times by all branches of the faith of Abraham until the Roman government sought to extirpate them.

In other words they are UNIVERSAL truths which every Christian should know in order to make sense of the gospel.

The number six represents this world.

The number seven represents the heavens and the Sabbath.

The number eight represented the heaven above the heavens of this world AND the Jubilee year when the messiah would come and reveal things that previous generations were not sufficiently prepared for.

All of these ideas were present in Judaism, Samaritanism and Christianity at one time. The greatest proof that they were subsequently REMOVED is the fact that Jews no longer remember when the cycle of sabbatical years fall.

Just how did the Jews 'forget' this commandment mandated by God. This is something that DOESN'T require an altar. It was forgotten because SOMEONE - i.e. Rome - wanted them to FORGET about their traditional messianic expectation.

Bar Khochba appeared in a Jubilee year.

The Jewish revolt was understood to coincide with Daniel's seventy weeks.

The gospel of Mark references ALL of these concepts. Christians just don't know what to make of them because they were instructed by a tradition influenced by the same Imperial interests.

Christianity also at one time venerated an 'ogdoad' (the eighth day of Passover) but this was replaced with the day of the Sun (the eighth day of the week).

The Empire remains victorious as long as believers remain ignorant. That is why it is so important to go beyond mere regurgitation of accepted principles of faith. They weren't just 'accepted.' They were forced onto the Church by Imperial interests.

I realized that today when I was at a Roman Catholic Church - yes, and the roof didn't cave in - and I heard them recite the Creed of the First Council of Constantinople (often mistakenly identified as 'the Nicene Creed') and these words were uttered:

... from thence he shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead ...

I can't help but think that these ideas were CAREFULLY AVOIDED by the original council of Nicea undoubtedly to bring the Alexandrians on board with the program. There was no way these ideas would fly in Alexandria at that time.

We can see this reflected in the differences with the original Creed established at Nicaea which simply read:

... He suffered, and the third day he rose again, ascended into heaven from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead ...

I think it would have offended the Alexandrians of the earliest period to claim that Jesus' WASN'T 'in glory' the first time he appeared. This certainly was the Marcionite understanding and I happen to think this is what St Mark taught to his first adherents.

In other words, Jesus was the glory Lord. Can you imagine the Apostle saying these things [1 Cor 2:8] if they weren't held in the earliest period? So how was it that we all found a way to 'unlearn' his teachings?

Yet this isn't the only problem the Alexandrians would have had with the later Creed. It would have been UNTHINKABLE to them to hold that the 'second advent' wouldn't involve Christ appearing as a 'royal figure.'

These things are in black and white in Origen's writings and ALL the third century Popes of Alexandria were Origenists in some form as Vivian notes.

So what changed between 325 CE and 381 CE? The role of the Imperial government in Christianity. I don't know how or why Constantine changed the status of Christians within the Empire but I can tell you that it is patently obvious that SUBSEQUENT administrations only INCREASED the politicization of the Church away from its Jewish messianic roots.

Yet be also aware - this process did not begin in the fourth century. It goes right back to Irenaeus and the Commodian period, if not even earlier ...