January 2013 – pastormikehoggard

In Staley’s commentary on the book of Romans, he tries to embed in the listeners mind the false concept that the word “faith” literally means to perform or to do the torah. He calls this idea “foundational” to his teaching of the Gospel, that in order to have righteousness, you must perform the works of the Old Testament law. He repeatedly remarks that the ONLY way to understand God’s real plan of salvation, you must understand it from the Hebrew perspective. In his idea, the “Greco-Roman” (his words) understanding of just believing to be saved is not the true Hebrew concept, so that in order to be really righteous before God , you must keep the Torah (the law of Moses).
During this teaching, he mentions something that you will never see in the Scriptures; The White Fire and the Black Fire.
“I would encourage each and every one of you to stop and think about this whole concept of “works” versus “faith”. They are not different concepts, they are one and the same. In the Greek mindset they are totally different. Works is different than faith. In the Hebrew mindset, the word “believe” means to “trust and obey.” It’s not and mental and intellectual concept like in the Greek perspective, where I say I believe in the color red or I believe in this person, it’s an intellectual concept, it’s very metaphorical and ambiguous. But in the Hebrew, Hebrew is concrete. It says when I believe something, that means I do it….Believing in yahwey is doing what He said. And I’m going to suggest that over the last 2000 years we’ve divorced the white fire from the black fire. OR should I say, the black fire, the written word, the instruction manual, we’ve kind of thrown away the map to be led by the spirit. And thats like taking all the words of the page off and now we have, what? A blank page.” – Jim Staley podcast, Romans, Part 1 beginning at 37:10
There is no doubt that Jim Staley falls under the category of “deceiving, and being deceived”, II Timothy 3:13. Whether aware of it or not, the root of the concept of “white fire and black fire” come straight from the Zohar, the guidebook of Jewish Mysticism, or kabbalah.
From the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale website, we are given a glimpse into the “mystical” nature of the black and white fires.
“On the simplest level, black fire refers to the letters of Torah, the actual words, which are written in the scroll. The white refers to the spaces between the letters. Together the black letters and white spaces between them constitute the “whole” of the Torah.
On yet another level, the black letters represent thoughts which are intellectual in nature, whether p’shat or d’rash. The white spaces, on the other hand, represent that which goes beyond the world of the intellect. The black letters are limited, limiting and fixed. The white spaces catapult us into the realm of the limitless and the ever-changing, ever-growing. They are the story, the song, the silence. Sometimes I wonder which speaks more powerfully, the black, rationalistic letters or the white, mystical spaces between them.” – http://www.hir.org/a_weekly_gallery/8.16.02-weekly.html

The following quotes come from http://www.ravkooktorah.com – a collection of the teachings of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook. Here is a brief biography of Rabbi Kook, from their website.

“Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook (1865-1935) – the first Chief Rabbi of pre-state Israel – was a mystic and a philosopher, a preeminent Talmudic scholar and a Lurian Cabbalist, an original thinker and a saintly tzaddik.”

As you can see, Rabbi Kook was a follower and teacher of the Kabbalah. Here is what Kook says concerning the White Fire – Black Fire.
“What are these black and white fires?
Black Ink on White Parchment
When we think about a Torah scroll, we usually only consider the letters themselves, written in black ink. Yet, the Talmud (Menachot 29a) rules that every letter in a Torah scroll must be completely surrounded by parchment. This requirement is called mukaf gevil. In other words, the white parchment around the letters is an integral part of the Torah; without it, the Torah scroll is disqualified. In fact, the white space is a higher form of Torah. It is analogous to the white fire of Sinai — a sublime, hidden Torah that cannot be read in the usual manner.
There is a delicate balance between black and white in the Torah.” – http://www.ravkooktorah.org/VAYIK64.htm

According to this, the idea of white and black fire are symbolized by the black ink on the white paper that the Torah was written on. This matches perfectly Jim Staley’s usage of it. According to Kook’s teaching, the White and Black fires are equal to the eastern concept of the yin-yang, the good and evil, light and darkness forces that, when unified, bring the world or a persons life, or their philosophy in to “balance” or harmony. The symbol of the yin-yang teaches that there is good in all evil and evil in all good. Consider this idea as you read the next quote, taken from http://www.ohr.edu, a Hebraic education website, the title of the page is called, Ask The Rabbi.

“Dear Rabbi, We are preparing a tour of Jewish artists for the Philadelphia Museum of Art. This is a world class museum with very little on Jewish art or artists. One artist mentions “black fire white fire” as the inspiration for one of his paintings. He says it is from the Zohar. Can you please give me some references or some other information on this? I can not find it. Thank You.
Dear Ron Cohen,
In the Zohar we find a statement that the Torah was written with “black fire upon white fire.” One explanation of “black fire and white fire” is that black fire denotes Divine Mercy while white fire is Divine Justice. The Maharsha explains that to appreciate G-d one must recognize the fact that both mercy and judgment are Divine attributes.
Interestingly, the concept of colored fire recurs in Midrashic literature. According to the Midrash, G-d showed Moshe the menorah made out of white, green, red and black fire.” – http://ohr.edu/ask_db/ask_main.php/194/Q3/

As you can clearly see now, the white and black fire concept comes directly from the Zohar, the guidebook to everything that God told the Israelites NOT to learn from the heathen around them. It is clear now that the source of the Torah observant “gospel” that Staley preaches does NOT come from the Scriptures, it’s root is the Kabbalah, which is Jewish witchcraft. This precisely why the Apostle Paul asked the Galatians who had bewitched them.
Now, without getting bogged down in all the details, (the Kabbalah is very difficult to understand, probably because it is a mystery religion), I will try to shed simple light on the next quotation, from http://www.torah.org, another Hebraic educational website.

“The Zohar HaKadosh alludes to this unique reality when it says that the Torah was written with “black fire upon white fire” (Zohar 3:132a), the white fire being the light of Chesed and the black fire being the light of Gevurah.” – http://www.torah.org/learning/perceptions/5764/netzavim.html

In this article, the chesed and the gevurah are part of the sephiroth, or the Tree of Life of the Kabbalah. It is taught that following the path of the sephiroth is the key to godhood. Chesed represents good and gevurah represents evil. Both are present on the Tree of Life. But by this, we now understand that the Tree of Life of the Kabbalah, is none other than the tree of knowledge of good and evil, the tree forbidden to be partaken of in Genesis 2 and 3. As then, the Serpent is still subtly enticing people to forsake the Tree of Life, the real Gospel of faith according to the Scriptures, and choose the mingled tree of a works based false gospel, that will only lead to death.
The foundation of Jim Staley’s new gospel is that just like the white and black fire must both be present, so Torah keeping (the works of the law) must not be divorced from salvation. The gospel that Jim Staley preaches is the gospel of Jewish witchcraft that the Apostle Paul cursed in Galatians.
(Galatians 1:8-9) “But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. {9} As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.”
It is both interesting and revealing that by Jim Staley’s own admission, he received this gospel from an encounter with a “Jesus” figure, whom his wife saw standing over him while he slept. (Jim Staley – Passion for Truth Visioncast http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uw1xboHLFkk

For more information on Jim Staley and his connection with the Kabbalah, see my Live broadcast at the link below.