• The Lamb, the Throne, and the Desert: Introduction
  • The Lamb, the Throne and the Desert: I. Jesus, the Origin of God’s Creation
  • The Lamb, the Throne, and the Desert: II. Falling; III. Rebellion, Restoration, and the Battle of the Ages; IV. The Man Who Walks with God
  • The Lamb, the Throne, and the Desert: V. Abraham, life as sacrifice, and the call to another country
  • The Lamb, the Throne, and the Desert: VI. Guardians of the Promise; VII. The Name and the Lamb; VIII. The Sinai Covenant
  • Who May Speak?
  • Lest the Stones Cry Out
  • The Grace of the King is the Destruction of the Accuser
  • The City of God, The City of the World and the Great Deception
  • About this site
  • The Alien’s Haggadah
  • Zionism and the Messiah, by D.M. Panton
  • The Change of the Times and the Laws
  • The Non-Christian and Anti-cosmic Roots of Amillennialism, by Sam A. Smith
  • The Temple, The Mosque, the Vatican and Building 7
  • Faithful in Battle
  • On the Other Side of the Mass for Christ
  • To Him Alone
  • Dominionism and Islam
  • Creation in the Image of God
  • A Reading of Revelation, the Disclosure from Yeshua Messiah

Jerusalem Graffiti

~ The person & politics of Yeshua my king

Jerusalem Graffiti

Category Archives: The Messiah of Israel

The Fundamentalist abandonment of the kingship of Yeshua, the Messiah of Israel

12 Thursday Nov 2015

Posted by jerusalemgraffiti in Abrahamic promises, premillennial dispensationalism, The Israel of God, The Messiah of Israel

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the heavenly throne, the Israel of God, the promises to Abraham, throne of David, Zionism

 

i

The renunciation

In a recent post I noted the obscenity of the Papal dismissal of the crucifixion.  But it would be unfair of me to criticize the Pope and ignore the excesses at the heart of modern Protestantism.  The Pope is not alone in redacting whole chapters of the life of our Messiah.  Conservative Protestant theology has taken possession of an equally distasteful renunciation of the Messiah, a renunciation which goes unnoticed because it has been so thoroughly established in the culture of the last century, so well prepared in the preceding centuries of Catholicism.

The conservative Protestants do not wait for the crucifixion to demean their Lord.  They start a week early, on what is called Palm Sunday, the day of the ritual entry of Yeshua into Jerusalem riding on a donkey, in fulfillment of the prophecy of Zechariah.

His entry on a donkey was a culturally explicit declaration that he entered the city as king.  Accordingly he received the honor and adoration of the people as their king:

“Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!  Peace in heaven and glory in the highest.”[1]

And, more specifically,

            “Blessed is the king of Israel.”[2]

And, indicating that he was seen as the rightful heir to the throne of David:

“Hosanna to the Son of David.”[3]

Were the people of Jerusalem guilty of hyperbole when they hailed Yeshua as their king?  The priests thought so, therefore they asked him to rebuke and silence his followers.  Yeshua responded with the suggestion that this was a moment which no force of history could impede:

“If they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”[4]

Yes. The arrival of Yeshua as king over Israel was so certain and so fundamental to the history of all the world, that, should we fail in recognition, then nature itself feels the wound and must give witness.  It is inconceivable that Yeshua would have accorded himself the form of entry into Jerusalem as king, coupled with the receipt of praise as king, were it not already certain that he, on his way to the cross, was in fact in full possession of his royal role and character.

Then what is the affront of the great majority of conservative Protestants and fundamentalists?   It is that they deny that Yeshua is king upon the eternal throne over Israel, transcendent Israel, the Israel of God.  Nor do they recognize the existence of this Israel.  They see only genetic Israel and the geopolitical construct of recent decades.  They seem to imagine that a seat of royal authority must be a gilded throne within view of the masses.  They fault the Creator of the universe for not having an office in downtown Jerusalem.  They confuse transcendent Israel with an earthly fabrication along lines of Zionist politics and genetic descent.

It has not always been so.  Prior to this century it was common to find members of the church who, given in their hearts to the Messiah of Israel, and not genetically Jewish, still saw themselves as citizens of the transcendent Israel of God.  Witness this hymn of John Newton[1725-1807]:

Glorious things of thee are spoken,
Zion, city of our God!
He, whose word cannot be broken,
Form’d thee for His own abode:
On the Rock of ages founded,
What can shake thy sure repose?
With salvation’s walls surrounded,
Thou may’st smile at all thy foes.

Bless’d inhabitants of Zion,
Wash’d in the Redeemer’s blood!
Jesus, whom their souls rely on,
Makes them kings and priests to God.
‘Tis His love His people raises
Over self to reign as kings,
And as priests, His solemn praises
Each for a thank-off’ring brings.

Saviour, if of Zion’s city
I through grace a member am,

Let the world deride or pity,
I will glory in Thy name:
Fading is the worldling’s pleasure,
All his boasted pomp and show:
Solid joys and lasting treasure,
None but Zion’s children know.

For John Newton, Zion is the home of all children of God, and we, the children of Yeshua, are to the manor born.  Like Abraham, Zion is our home, whether or not it is occupied by others, for we who have eternal life occupy the eternal promise which, in His own time, God will fulfill.

Corruption crept into Protestant thinking.  Belief in the kingship of Yeshua was thrown aside.  Toward the middle of the nineteenth century John Nelson Darby, [1800-1882], an Irish Anglican priest, began to formalize a theology which rested on 1.] the complete separation of the church and Israel, 2.] the belief that Yeshua came as “candidate” for kingship but was rejected by the Jewish people and so returned to heaven in failure, [his hopes dashed?], and 3.] a belief in two completely different destinies for genetic Israel and the church, the church to be raptured up into heaven at the beginning of the final seven years of tribulation, the Jews to remain on earth and tough it out, battling the Beast Kingdom, compensated only by the fact that they are finally rid of those annoying gentiles.  Such a theology has great utility to the Zionists, and brings great pleasure to the architects of Catholicism.

It is useful to the Zionists because it gets Protestants to back off from Israel and abandon their claims upon its destiny.  This allows the secular Zionist to claim for himself, on genetic grounds, all the ancient promises, in particular the promise to Abraham of a land “from the River of Egypt to the Euphrates.”

It is pleasurable to Catholic ambition because it causes Protestants to abandon every earthly claim to the kingdom of God and the promises to Abraham.  As consequence, the Messianic hopes of the church can remain in heaven, up in the sky: this sky within which the Catholic church has sequestered Christ since its inception.  Like the Zionists, therefore, the Vatican also is free to pursue its earthy objectives.  [It has always been the program of the Catholic institution to offer mankind the semblance of the knowledge of God while inserting itself between man and God and usurping to itself the power and authority which rightly belong to God alone, even making the Pope the Vicarius Filii Dei, the” Representative of the Son of God,”  the vicarious substitute for the presence and rule of Christ in the world.  They even ordain each priest with the blasphemous phrase, Tu es alter Christus, “you are another Christ,” further displacing Christ in their cosmology.]

As for the Protestants, this recent deformation of their theology, known academically as “premillennial dispensationalism,” renounces the kingship of Yeshua and hardly deserves a rebuttal, any more than we would wish to debate Scripture with that false prophet, Pope Francis.  Only let it be known that their impoverished line of thought has nothing to do with what is actually written in Scripture.

Nevertheless, Darby’s anemic philosophy broadly prevails within the halls of conservative Protestantism.  On the heels of Darby, who was not widely known, came C.I. Scofield and his vastly popular Scofield Reference Bible in which, through copious footnotes, he and his accomplices interpreted all of Scripture in the light of their redefinition of Israel and the church, in light of their gross mishandling of the triumph of Yeshua at the cross.  So who were his readers to believe? the Expert? or their own eyes?  In laziness they chose “the Expert,” by the thousands.  And with them went the leaders of the Evangelical church and the seminaries.

 

ii

Peter affirms the kingship of Yeshua

Anyone with a basic command of the English language and the ability to think for himself can figure out the falsehood of their pre-tribulation rapture by reading I Thessalonians 4.13-17 and II Thessalonians 2.1-10.  [They can also read the article, Boiling Frogs and the Return of the King, on this blogsite.]

Anyone who thinks Yeshua came as “candidate” for kingship has never read the Bible.

Anyone who thinks that the church of Yahveh and the Israel of Yahveh are mutually exclusive has done nothing but listen to sermons rather than read the Bible.

Anyone who wants to know if Yeshua is on the eternal throne at this moment should read carefully the following Scriptures – and should make personal discovery of the politics of Yeshua through swearing fealty to his person, through kneeling before him who is seated on the heavenly throne, and through opening the heart to the commanding presence of his Spirit.

On the Day of Pentecost when the Spirit of God first descended in power upon the people of God in Jerusalem, Peter addressed the onlookers, explaining that this was the fulfillment of the prophecies of Joel that the Spirit would be poured out.  Then he told them that even though they, the people of Israel, had crucified Christ, yet God had not abandoned Yeshua to the grave and he had risen from the dead.  Peter then reminded them that David also had prophesied about the coming Messiah, the coming anointed king, and had said,

“that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne.”[5]

Peter then continued to explain how recent events were the very groundwork of the fulfillment of the Messianic prophecy:

“Seeing what was ahead, he [David] spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to the grave, nor did his body see decay.  God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact.  Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear….Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Yeshua, whom you crucified, both Lord and Anointed King [Christ].”[6]

Yes, Pentecost and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit is the evidence that Yeshua is on the throne of heaven reaching out into all the world to all his subjects in power and healing and instruction.  The Holy Spirit is the matrix and the cement of the kingdom through which Yeshua is able to rule in our hearts as no other king can rule.

Catholics are willing to call Yeshua king as long as he stays at a distance, the tragically abused child of their “Queen of Heaven.”  Their churches often have Latin slogans naming Yeshua as Rex, though not king of the Jews but king of “the kingdom.”  [Rex Regnum Sum.]  This causes them no pain because Yeshua has been shelved in the heavens, co-opted by his mother Mary, and now the Pope wears the actual crown of authority.  In fact his blasphemous crown has three rings or tiers, signifying that he has taken upon himself ultimate ecclesiastical authority, ultimate temporal authority, and ultimate cosmic authority!

Protestants are willing to see Yeshua as their coming king, while in present time he is merely their personal savior.  They expect him to have royal authority in the future, although for all their skill in interpreting the Bible, no one identifies the scenario of the future coronation.

 

iii

Daniel identifies the kingship of the Messiah in the course of history

Daniel, however, received from God quite a different timeline.  For Daniel the royalty of the Messiah and his kingship over his people does not come at the end of history.  It all comes about within the course of the political doings of the kings of the earth.

In the second chapter of the book of Daniel, we find him interpreting a dream of Nebuchadnezzar.  The king has envisioned a statue with a head of gold, chest and arms of silver, belly and thighs of bronze, legs of iron, feet partly iron and partly baked clay.  Prophetically, Daniel shares the divine interpretation that the elements of the statue represent the great kingdoms of history, beginning with Nebuchadnezzar as the head of gold.  The subsequent kingdoms are now recognized as the Medo-Persian Empire [silver], the Greek Empire [bronze], the Roman Empire [iron]… and a later confederation of Rome with other powers, in a ten part division…sounding something like the coming partnership and dominion of the Vatican [Rome], the UN, and Islam [OIC].  And where does the kingdom of Yeshua fit in?  Daniel describes its entry and the outcome.

Daniel says to Nebuchadnezzar  that

“while you were watching [the statue], a rock was cut out, but not by human hands.”[7]

In the interpretation Daniel explains,

”In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people.”[8]

As for the outcome, in the dream it was noticed,

“It [the rock] struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and smashed them.  Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were broken to pieces at the same time and became like chaff on a threshing floor in the summer.  The wind swept them away without leaving a trace.  But the rock that struck the statue became a huge mountain and filled the whole earth.”[9]

As interpretation, Daniel says,

“It [the kingdom created in the time of those kings] will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever.”[10]

In other words it is in the course of history, not at the end of history, that we are to find Yeshua as king over his people.  Yeshua first appeared as king within the dominion of Rome.  Now, in a world where every national leader kisses the ring of the Pope, we are in the amalgam of Rome with “baked clay.”  And throughout all this we see the remnants of Babylon and Greece and Persia.  But, in transcendence, the kingdom of Yeshua is more real than every kingdom.

Gideon had thirty- two thousand nominal soldiers, but God told him to take only three hundred tested soldiers.  Three hundred were given victory over the entire army of Midian.  So for us today.  The handful of faithful on earth will march with the armies of heaven and in the coming years will see the victory of Yeshua over the nations who cynically join themselves together, thinking that they will take ownership of the earth.

 

                                                            iv

Prophetically, David sees God’s chosen king besieged by the nations

The second Psalm similarly creates a picture of the Messianic king who has not yet assumed power over brick and dust, who, as Lord over a transcendent Zion, is also “in the time of those kings,” beleaguered by national powers in opposition to his sovereign power.  It is especially now, in the approach of the new global society, that we see revealed the depth and ancient roots of the conspiracy of rebellion to establish a world without the laws of the covenant and without the people of the covenant:

“Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain?  The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against his Anointed One.  “Let us break their chains,” they say, “and throw off their fetters.”  The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them.  Then he rebukes them in his anger and terrifies them in his wrath, saying, “I have installed my King on Zion, my holy hill.”[11]

Be he in the dust of Zion or on the heavenly throne, the living Messiah, Yeshua, rules substantially in the hearts of his subjects through the power and presence of his Spirit reaching into us and binding us to himself with cords of steel.  We are the ones who have the responsibility to stand in our faith, to own the covenant and to live as the people of the covenant.  Only ignorance and cowardice can cause people to abandon a covenant sealed by the blood of Yeshua.

 

 

                                                                        v

The anointing of Yeshua

The great truths of Scripture, the ponderous informing moments in the life of our Lord, are not intelligible to the masses.  No matter what we have been taught, the great truths of faith are esoteric, not exoteric.  Yeshua delighted in making himself obscure to those who claimed they knew it all.  And when Peter saw what others could not see, Yeshua remarked that it was only through the voice of the Father that he could know such things.

To anyone who does not know Yeshua intimately, the cross is a mystery.  Similarly the anointing of Yeshua is not apparent to the eye of the world, as it expects to witness the affirmation of a Westminster Abbey, of pomp and ceremony.  The anointing of Yeshua is esoterically and spiritually perceived.

To anoint is to ordain or to consecrate.   To ordain is to select and, by virtue of authority, to appoint.  To consecrate is to set apart, to devote.  Mere application of substance, even special oil, by a person without specific authority, could not make anyone the Messiah.   And what oil would the Father use to add gravity to his appointment and consecration of his Son as ruler over his holy people and ruler over all Creation?  Surely nothing could be more grave than his own hand and his own word.

David could not have been anointed by Samuel as king on the throne of Israel, were it not that Samuel acted under the direction and command of God.  Through Samuel, Yahveh himself chose David.  The oil of anointing was merely a witness to the presence of the voice of Yahveh in the selection.

In the appointment of Yeshua, the voice of Yahveh alone, emanating from the heavens, is sufficient.  That moment in which Mary of Bethany broke open the costly container of nard and anointed Yeshua was a moment of powerful significance in the heart of Yeshua.  But it was not within her sphere of power to anoint Yeshua as Messiah. She was a simple woman enacting a very special custom of appreciation.  Yeshua said that her act had special meaning as it looked forward to his burial.  But she did not anoint him as Messiah.

Only the Father can own the authority to choose and appoint and devote his Son to the role of eternal king over his holy people.  Whether or not there has been or is yet to be a day of visible anointing with oil is not a determinant factor.  What is determinant is the explicit act of the Father to designate Yeshua as king over his holy people.

King David had three anointings.  David’s first anointing occurred on the day that Yahveh revealed his choice of David to Samuel.  He was definitively chosen to replace Saul as king over Israel, though the assumption of power was yet to come.

“Then the Lord said, ‘Rise and anoint him, he is the one.’  So Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers, and from that day on the Spirit of the Lord came upon David in power.”[12]

It was not just a tentative or nominal anointing as evidenced by the fact that “the Spirit of the Lord came upon David in power.”  Prior to the anointing David was a shepherd.  Subsequent to the anointing he was a prince of Israel surrounded by a hedge of God’s presence and power.

Soon after the death of Saul, God told David to move to Hebron.  There he received a second anointing.

“Then the men of Judah came to Hebron and there they anointed David king over the house of Judah.”[13]

Now he was made ruling king over the tribe into which he was born, the tribe which has always owned the great Messianic promise.  These were his people.  And it was God’s will to establish him as king over them.

Soon Abner, the commander of Saul’s army, led the way in preparing all Israel to recognize David as their king, even conferring with the elders of Israel and telling them,

“The Lord promised David, ‘By my servant David I will rescue my people Israel from the hand of the Philistines and from the hand of all their enemies.’”[14]

David had been chosen by God to be king over Israel, and he was now ruling as king over the people of Judah.  With the third anointing he would assume sovereign power over all Israel:

“When all the elders of Israel had come to King David at Hebron, the king made a compact with them at Hebron before the Lord, and they anointed David king over Israel.”[15]

If David were not already in possession of royal authority he could not have made a compact [covenant] with the people.  A covenant is an oath defining allegiance between a king and his people.

The life of David and the series of anointings sealing his kingship are given to us as a type and as a key to understanding the anointings of Yeshua.

Up to this time we see Yeshua anointed twice in the course of his life on earth, in circumstances analogous to those of David.  It seems that there may come yet a third anointing when at last the rift is healed between Judah and Israel, so enabling the day when Yeshua will freely exercise his sovereignty over all of Israel.

Yeshua’s first anointing came at the time of his baptism in the Jordan.  In that moment Yahveh clearly marked him as the Messiah of Israel’s expectation, and the power of the Spirit of God was brought upon him.  Yeshua’s second anointing came on the Mount of Transfiguration.  In this moment he was again marked as Yahveh’s chosen king, and his children were called to fealty.   In each of these events Yahveh ordained Yeshua as Messiah by speaking highly significant phrases from the heavens in the hearing of those on the ground.  In each anointing he said the words,

“This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”[16]

We see that these are the words of divine anointing once we see that they, by God’s own word, announce the fulfillment in Yeshua of the Messianic prophecy, and this we will demonstrate.  First, however, to look at the record of the anointing at the Jordan.

Matthew’s account is as follows:

“As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water.  At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him.  And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.’”[17]

Mark’s account is similar:

“At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.  As Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove.  And a voice came from heaven: ‘You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.’”[18]

What must be shown from Scripture is the significance of these words in the speech of the Father.  But we must also consider the account of what Yahveh spoke on the Mount of Transfiguration.

As the time approached for Yeshua to enter Jerusalem and go to the cross, and being near Mount Hermon, he stopped with his disciples in Caesarea Phillippi, a place devoted to the worship of Roman gods.  Surrounded by the artifacts of false gods, Yeshua asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”  and he asked Peter, “Who do you say I am?”

Peter answered, “You are the Christ [ha Mashiach, the anointed king], the Son of the living God.”[19] Peter had come to know this, and, since the anointing at the Jordan, this was explicitly true.  Yeshua assured Peter that this was esoteric knowledge, that “this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven.”[20]  And then Yeshua “warned his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ.”  Yes, at this moment he was the anointed king.  But he was not yet in a position to assume power over all the people of the nation.  He was on course toward the assumption of power over the few, over his very own, over those who hold to him and recognize his sovereignty.  Therefore it was important that he not be hailed as mundane Messiah over the mundane nation.  Furthermore he was directed moment by moment toward the cross, which would become his first great royal achievement for his people.  He wanted no pointless adulation to come in the way of his mission.  For this purpose he insisted that his disciples tell no one that he was the Christ.

A week later Yeshua took Peter, John and James and “went up onto a mountain to pray,”[21] probably onto nearby Mount Hermon.

“As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning.”[22]

[Now he had the appearance which John attributes to him[23] in his vision of Yeshua in heaven after the resurrection and ascension into the heavens.]  And now, on the mountain,

“Two men, Moses and Elijah, appeared in glorious splendor, talking with Jesus.  They spoke about his departure, which he was about to bring to fulfillment at Jerusalem.”[24]

But the Greek for “departure” is exodus, and in this context they are referring to much more than his change of address from earth to heaven, but rather the Exodus which would soon be made possible at the cross as he “would deliver his people from the bondage of sin and bring to fulfillment the work of both Moses and Elijah.”[25]

“Peter and his companions were very sleepy, but when they became fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men standing with him.  As the men were leaving Jesus, Peter said to him, ‘Master, it is good for us to be here.  Let us put up three shelters – one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.’ [He did not know what he was saying.]”[26]

Even though Peter had been given the insight that Yeshua is the Christ, there still seemed to be limits to his understanding of Yeshua’s divinity, and he imagined Yeshua sharing some sort of architectural honor equally with Elijah and Moses.  Then the voice of Yahveh entered the scene in the hearing of Peter, James and John, and in the hearing of Moses and Elijah:

“While he was still speaking, a bright cloud enveloped them, and a voice from the cloud said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.   Listen to him!’”

This time there is an additional appointment: Listen to him!  According to the construction in the Greek, “Listen to him” [Akouete autou] is acceptable but not strong enough.  Because autou is in the genitive case, a preferred translation would be “hearken to him and obey him.”  Yahveh is formally affirming that full authority now belongs to Yeshua.

With this anointing Yeshua is not only marked and set aside for kingship, he is now free to establish a covenant between himself and his people, free to act on their behalf, to undertake the Exodus which will lead them out of bondage to the enemy.  In the final weeks of Yeshua’s life he will act to affirm the actuality of his sovereign power.

 

vi

The prophetic content of the words of anointing

So now at last we look at the origin of the unusually simple words with which Yahveh appointed Yeshua as our great and eternal king.

We look first at one of the earliest Messianic prophecies which refer specifically to the Messianic occupation of royal power.  Here, uniquely, we find Yahveh characterizing the tenure of the role of Messiah in terms of a unique relationship which shall hold between himself and the anointed king over the holy people.  The prophet Nathan relayed to David the words of Yahveh promising David that from his offspring would come the eternal king, and here, as never previously, Yahveh identified the Messiah as his Son:

“’I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, …and I will establish his kingdom.  He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.  I will be his father and he will be my son….My love will never be taken away from him.  Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever.’”[27]

Later, David, prophetically, recalls the words of this foundational prophecy in the words of the second Psalm:

“I have installed my King on Zion, my holy hill.”  I will proclaim the decree of Yahveh: He said to me, “You are my Son; today I have become your Father.  Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession.”[28]

So with the prophecies of Nathan and of David, this unique event in which Yahveh calls someone his Son, this becomes an identifier of the coming eternal king over Israel.  Now then we look at the second phrase spoken each time from the heavens: “With you I am well pleased.” This also has its roots in Messianic prophecy, in Isaiah 42, where Yahveh promises the coming of the one who rules in union with his own will, who is given all the power of the Spirit, and who rules and brings justice to all the earth:

“Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him and he will bring justice to the nations… In faithfulness he will bring forth justice; he will not falter or be discouraged till he establishes justice on the earth.  In his law the islands will put their hope… This is what God Yahveh says – he who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and all that comes out of it, who gives breath to its people, and life to those who walk on it:   ‘I, Yahveh, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand.  I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.’”[29]

Yahveh, in each event, spoke from the heavens, combining these two key phrases known to be prophetic references to the coming Messiah, and in speaking those phrases in each event, as his Son stood before John and the people gathered in search of righteousness at the river Jordan, and later as his Son stood glorified before the earthly witness of James and Peter and John and the heavenly witness of Moses and Elijah, so Yahveh poured out on Yeshua his absolute appointment of Yeshua as king over his holy people.

 

vii

Yeshua has assumed power over his people, transcendent Israel.  In the coming time he will assume power over all the earth.

Out of the anointing of Yeshua came the affirmation of his royal power.  Yeshua, knowing that the established powers of the Temple were seeking his death, entered Jerusalem as king and received the honor of his people as their true king.  Then, as king, Yeshua went to the cross, so standing in for his people, taking upon himself the penalty of their every shame, setting them free from the curse of death which clings to our sin, bringing to us the freedom to come into the presence of God.   Resurrected from the grave, Yeshua gave us a call to obedient fealty to him, and a mission to carry the gospel of the kingdom into all the world, empowered by the life of his Spirit within our bodies, assuring us at his ascension that,

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.  And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”[30]

Yes, it is the gospel of an actual kingdom that must be held up for men to see, especially at this time as the kingdoms of the world descend into what appears to be a conspiracy of global war. Our hope lies only with our king in his transcendent kingdom.  The renewal of all things awaits the completion of our mission.

“And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”[31]

Why does the church not see Yeshua ruling as king over them?  For the simple reason that they are happy to have his salvation, his counsel, and his blessings, but they reject his sovereign authority over them.

 

L.S. Jones

lawrencestewartjones@gmail.com

[1] Luke 19.38

[2] John 12.13

[3] Matthew 21.9

[4] Luke 19.40

[5] Acts 2.30

[6] Acts 2.31-36 excerpts

[7] Daniel 2.34

[8] Daniel 2.44

[9] Daniel 2.34,35

[10] Daniel 2.44

[11] Psalm 2.1-6

[12] I Samuel 16.12,13

[13] II Samuel 2.4

[14] II Samuel 3.18

[15] II Samuel 5.3

[16] Matthew 3.17

[17] Matthew 3.16,17

[18] Mark 1.9-11

[19] Matthew 16.16

[20] Matthew 16.17

[21] Luke 9.28

[22] Luke 9.29

[23] Revelation  1.13-18

[24] Luke 9.31

[25] NIV footnote on Luke 9.30, NIV Self-Study Bible, Concordia 1986

[26] Luke 9.32-34

[27] II Samuel 7.12-17 excerpts

[28] Psalm 2.6-8

[29] Isaiah 42.1-7 excerpts

[30] Matthew 28.18-20

[31] Matthew 24.14

To Him Alone

10 Friday May 2013

Posted by jerusalemgraffiti in Abrahamic promises, Faith, The Israel of God, The Kingdom of Heaven, The Messiah of Israel, Uncategorized

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Darwin, Ecumenism, faith, the covenant, the cross, the heart, the heavenly throne, the kingdom of heaven, the ladder to heaven, the promises to Abraham, the soul

 

i.

An  inviolable truth

Solomon holds his sword high, about to cleave the infant in two.  The false mother says, “Let it be done.  Divide the child.  It is just.”  The true mother cries out, “No! Let my own hopes be crushed, but let the child be kept whole!”

So in the courts of philosophy and religion.  Many are the false midwives who are ready to see the truth divided, declaring all inspiration to be equal: “Let the Hindus sport a leg and the Buddhists an arm and the Catholics a severed head: in the end it’s all one truth, and we, in an orgy of mediocrity, can celebrate together our love for the semblance of truth.”

But the few who know their God will never let that knowledge be divided or degraded.  They will never agree that a limb or a head has the worth of a truth more precious than life itself.  This is the faith of the martyrs, that faith which is offensive to the world, that faith which enables those who have it to live and speak without compromise.

How does one come to such a faith?  What is this faith that I should want it?  In whom is faith that I should trust and follow?  What bond is faith that I should never let him go?

ii

The soul as the medium and residence of faith

In searching beyond what is given, in searching beyond the witness of the senses and beyond the conclusions of reason, faith begins.

The scientist undertakes his research with “faith” that some unknown can be found.  However, to establish his discoveries, he only allows the witness of a logic rooted in experimentation, observation, and measurement.  This is appropriate to the study of the material world.  Any claim that all truth must submit to such a program is equivalent to a pre-judgment that there is no reality beyond the material.

Just such a narrow perspective has held dominion in the last century.  Yet, in times past, men of science, believing that the spectrum of reality stretched beyond the material world, were not so stunted in their thinking that they could not enjoy both the witness of the senses and the witness of the heart.  Galileo, Newton, Pascal, Faraday and a host of others found no conflict between the investigation of matter and a certainty of God which begins in faith.  For them, thinking and logic were relevant also to faith, though faith be rooted in the private judgments of the heart.

Faith, then, is a faculty which appropriately belongs to such a person, to someone who believes that the scope of reality surpasses that which the tools of science are able to ascertain and who believes that the heart can be a reliable witness in determining that truth.  This faculty, belief in the witness of the heart, can only be exercised by those who believe that the word “heart” may refer to something more than the organ which pumps their blood.

It is essential – in spite of all that science or Darwin might have to say – it is essential that we recognize that a human being transcends mind and body: that we have an essential core which is our invisible and eternal Address; that we have a core which owns expectation and purpose and suffering and discernment such as appear from deep within ourselves, such as far exceed the memories and conclusions and generalizations of experience; in sum, that we have a core which in and of itself is capable of extreme intelligence.

Just as Genesis describes separately the creation of the soul and the formation of the body, so King David in the Psalms refers to the two levels of our being:

“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. …My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place.  When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body.”  Psalm 139.13,15,16

Darwin’s journey upward out of the primeval slime implicitly portrays the eternal and independently existing soul as incongruous with his “human animal.”  Since the folly of Darwinism has been radically successful in the modern age, rooting out belief even in our own existence, there remain very few individuals who are ready for profound faith.

Since faith becomes that faculty by which the human person reaches through the unknown and touches God, there must be something real at both ends of the mystical wire – a real God and a real and conscious soul inhabiting “the heart’s house.”

It is our soul that is our address, that center in us which goes to God apart from all loss of mind and body.  Our soul gathers to itself multiple terms: person, spirit, ego, heart, self.  In dreams the soul reveals itself surrounded by history and purposes and wounds which are unknown to us in our conscious experience.  Spirit is associated with soul.  However difficult “spirit” might be to identify, we popularly refer to it as an indicator of the life of the soul.

The soul has other accoutrements to which we commonly refer.  It is normal to speak of rationality, propriety, and sexuality as independent and warring forces within the heart, as in dreams they often appear in the guise of independent personae.  In our daily conduct it is normal that we do not “bare the soul” or present to the world the whole sum of who we are.  Rather we present to the world an edited version of ourselves which is commonly called our Persona.  There is a great complex environment surrounding the soul, and it is for this reason that it can be useful to speak not only of the soul but also,  more inclusively and metaphorically, of the “heart” or “heart’s house.”

iii

Spiritual perception and the ring of truth

Believing in the existence of my own soul, I am able to believe that I truly exist.  This is belief which often comes only through pain, through listening to cries which emerge from deep within our own being, cries which we have not imitated from another source, cries which call out from dark corners which we never knew.  These are the cries of trauma, of hope, of ambition, of despair – cries so earnest that they frighten us because we are shocked at the urgency of their appearance.  It is perhaps no accident that the ability of the soul to recognize God seems more acute when we are in distress.

Within these cries, if we are fortunate and have not had our spirits crushed, there may emerge a cry that calls out for “the one who brings order to the heart’s house, the awaited one, the anticipated one.”  This is the One who is sought in faith, whom only faith can find, whom only a life of faith can come to know.

Believing in the existence of my own soul I am made able to learn that I have significance in the consciousness of my Creator, that I am seen, that he knows me.

“You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.  You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.  Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Yahveh.”

Psalm 139.2-4

The promise of Yeshua is even more radical:

“And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever – the Spirit of truth.  The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him.  But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.  I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.”             John 14.16-18

As for the scientist or the composer or the artist, early faith is labor in hope: it is a great deal of searching and experimenting, a great deal of thrashing about.  But faith becomes informed.  For the composer, he is informed by his own efforts, by the compositions of those who have come before him, and by the sound that rings true.  For the one who is searching for God, he is informed by his own persistence, by the words of God preserved in writing, and by the very presence of God speaking to the heart.  The living God reaches into our lives.  He has made us to seek him and he has ordered the world and our individual experience to make it possible that we should find him, that he should ultimately hold us in his embrace.

Intelligent faith eventually arrives at belief in the existence of a real object of faith.    That object is God as Person, for the satisfaction of the quest of faith will not ring true until the searcher recognizes in the object of his faith that same passion and hope and suffering which distinguishes and describes his own person.  God made us in his image.  He made us in the image of his person.  The person is the atomic unit of spiritual reality.

iv

Belief in the in-historical God leads to fire and smoke

Belief is the threshold of faith.  Is it the whole of faith?  James, brother of the Messiah of Israel, said No:

“You believe that there is one God.  Good!  Even the demons believe that – and shudder….”  James 2.19

Belief must become life, so that our original goal is attained – that we touch God, know God, live with God, and become bound to God.

The believer must learn the character of his God through study of the history of all that God has done to gather mankind to himself.  This basic education must come from the recorded words of God.

“As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth.  It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”                              Isaiah 55.10,11

In the course of this education we discover that our God is at the heart of human history and that he is with us in the present moment.  We learn that he is not like the god of Aristotle, rapt in introversion at the center of the heavens.  Rather he is the God of Abraham and Moses and David, the God of fire and smoke, reaching out for mankind:

“Our God comes and will not be silent; a fire devours before him, and around him a tempest rages.  He summons the heavens above, and the earth that he may judge his people: ‘Gather to me my consecrated ones, who made a covenant with me by sacrifice.’”                                                 Psalm 50.3,4,5

The  perception that our God is conscious of us may overwhelm us and leave us stricken with despair: he may seem to threaten our being because of the vast difference between us of and scale and virtue.  Evidence of the one whom we seek renders us increasingly concerned that he is more than we can know.

“You hem me in – behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me.  Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.  Where can I go from your Spirit?  Where can I flee from your presence?”    Psalm 139.5-7

Even the finite appearance of the Angel of God caused dread to the parents of Samson in the time of the judges:

He [the angel] replied, “Why do you ask my name?  It is beyond understanding.”…Manoah took a young goat and sacrificed it on a rock to Yahveh….As the flame blazed up from the altar toward heaven, the angel of Yahveh ascended in the flame…Manoah realized that it was the angel of Yahveh.  “We are doomed to die!” he said to his wife.  “We have seen God!” 

Judges 13. 18-22

The perception that the Creator of all worlds holds us in his consciousness leads us to consciousness of our helplessness and unworthiness, strangely compounded with the opposing conviction that we are intensely desired by our God.

v

Healing the breach: the Messianic prophesy and the advent of Yeshua

How are we to deal with this?  Our first reaction might be anger, as if we have been led into the discovery of an unbearable gulf which can not be bridged, led to the desire of that which we can never know.  But the education of faith must lead us to the discovery of all that our God has done to gather us to himself.  Isaiah told us of it all, and he wrote it down, centuries before it ever happened:  the messianic [designated king] Son of God would come in all the being and presence of the Father:

“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.  Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore.  The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.”      Isaiah 9.6,7

What does he do that makes the difference?  He comes to show us the way to himself.

“Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.  Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned…He will tend his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms; he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young…”    Isaiah 40.1,2,11

How does he bridge the gulf between us?  Here is the mystery which offends mankind.  He bridges the gulf at the cross.

“Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.  But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed.  All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned – every one – to his own way; and Yahveh has laid on him the iniquity of us all.  …Yet it was the will of Yahveh to put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring;…Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.”    Isaiah 53.4-11

How does restoration come about when we have known nothing but rebellion?  He penetrates our individual lives and brings us the healing presence of his Spirit.

“For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: ‘I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.  For I will not contend forever, nor will I always be angry; for the spirit would grow faint before me, and the breath of life that I made….I have seen his ways, but I will heal him; I will lead him and restore comfort to him and his mourners, creating the fruit of the lips.  Peace, peace, to the far and to the near,’ says Yahveh, ‘and I will heal him.’”    Isaiah 57.15-18

We discover that Yeshua of Nazareth, born into Israel twenty centuries ago, is the one who has come to fulfill all the prophecies of Isaiah.[1]  We learn that he entered the world and went as king to the cross, standing in for us his people, dressing us in his colors, making us his own, opening for us every freedom to come into the presence of our heavenly Father.

The response of faith is to acknowledge what Yeshua has done and to give up every effort to achieve our own righteousness before God.  As Isaiah wrote,

“…all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.  We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.”   Isaiah 64.6

We give up the labor of making ourselves righteous and by faith we trust in him and what he, Yeshua, has done to make us whole and restore us to our God – even conquering the curse of death which stood over us since the fall.

vi 

The one who enters and brings order to the house

Is this the journey of faith, to come to him for our redemption?  Yes, it is faith, but it is only the beginning.  We set out on a path and we ran into a great obstacle: our willful sinfulness and rebellion and finitude up against his majesty and honor and faithfulness.  We discovered the reconciliation which He alone accomplished by reaching into history and becoming one of us and taking upon himself the whole weight of  human rebellion.  We are reconciled to him.  But we must go farther.

We have heard his call and we have come to him to know him.  We have come to him for healing.  We have heard his promise of healing.  We know that if we are to have a life in his presence we must be healed, not only of the stains in our history, but also healed in our present being, so that we can know him openly and freely.  He must give us a new heart.  He must bring order and peace into the heart’s house.

How does order come to the house?  Order comes to the house when the house is yielded to the one to whom it rightly belongs.  He alone can rule the house with authority and love and understanding.  He alone can know the deepest aspirations of the human heart and instruct us day by day in all that we need to know in order to fill out the great hope of our humanity, that seed which he planted in us.  He our God has come to us and we must open the secret core of our being to him.

“Behold I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and sup with him and he with me.”    Revelation 3.20

This day must come.  We must open ourselves and yield to his entry.  Yeshua said,

“I am the bread of life….I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.  This bread is my flesh which I give for the life of the world…..Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.  Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.  Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me.”   ….Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you?  …The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing.  The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.”  John 6.48,51,53-57

Yeshua was speaking as graphically as possible to tell his disciples that they must truly open their core being to the presence of the Spirit of Yeshua himself, and that this becomes their sustenance and their healing.

This life of intimacy with our redeemer becomes that life in which we go beyond all academic knowledge of him.  We become like the neighbors of the Samaritan woman after they spent hours at his feet:

They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”    John 4.42

We also are led by him to know him through the historical record of all that he has said and done, this record being all the Scriptures of both the old and new covenants.  The role of Yeshua begins in the first verse of Genesis, as John has told us clearly:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was with God in the beginning.  Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.  In him was life, and that life was the light of men….The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.  We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.  No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.   John 1.1-4,14,18

In our broadening knowledge of our redeemer we are led into all the vast mysteries of this world and encouraged by God never to stop asking questions, never to cease to explore the riches of his person.  As Paul wrote,

“My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge….all things were created by him and for him.  He is before all things and in him all things hold together…..For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.”                                                   Colossians 2.2,3; 1.17,19,20

Who is this whose life stretches from the cross to the present to the depths of Creation?  It is our God, even the one who would inhabit the human heart.  His Spirit is meant to rule within our heart, to instruct our souls, to encourage our spirit, to honor him.  It is only someone of intrinsic worth who can be said to deserve a great teacher.  We are that person of worth.  He is that teacher.  It is for us to become honor to him.

vii 

Royal power, the throne of heaven and the celestial architecture 

But we must go farther.  We have opened our hearts to him, and we are learning to love him, and we are discovering the peace which he brings to the court of our soul’s house, and we are made conscious that this power which he exercises over our entire being is greater than any power on earth.  Until he comes, the soul is at war with itself, battling through darkness, desperately attempting to give the reigns of power to the voice of the warrior or the scholar or the lover or the cynic or the tyrant, never finding peace for lack of the only hand that knows and cares and guides and truly loves the human heart.

By his power the heart is healed.  And the certainty of his healing and his presence is the certainty that there is some function of the celestial order which binds the heavens to the surface of the earth.  As Jacob saw and as Yeshua himself avowed, the heavens are joined to earth by a ladder, a stairway, and that stairway is Yeshua, the Messiah of Israel.

He [Jacob] had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.     Genesis 28.12

Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, you shall see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”   John 1.51

In the presence of his power in the heart and in consciousness of his royal seat in the heavens we are pressed to recognize that his royal kingdom spreads on invisible cords  throughout the world.  We cannot help but see throughout the old covenant Scriptures that Yeshua alone fulfills the Messianic expectation, a rule which reaches to his subjects in this world and binds them to himself, yet a kingdom which transcends the form of the kingdoms of this world.  This our kingdom is that rock cut out of a mountain but not by human hands, that rock to be formed in the time of the historic earthly kingdoms:

“In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people.  It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever.  This is the meaning of the vision of the rock cut out of a mountain, but not by human hands.”    Daniel 2.44,45

We can not help but see Yeshua as our king, as royal lord over all that we are.  And now our mind is opened to all that is written in the Scriptures to assert his kingship.

When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen:

‘Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord.’…

Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, rebuke your disciples!’

‘I tell you,’ he replied, ‘if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.

                                                                                    Luke 19.37-40

Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews.  But now my kingdom is from another place.” 

“You are a king, then!” said Pilate.

Jesus answered, “You are right in saying I am a king.”  John 18. 36,37

“These are the words of the true Holy One, who holds the key of David, who opens and none shall shut, who shuts and none shall open.”   Revelation 3.7

“These are the words of the first and the last, who was dead and came to life.”    Revelation 2.8

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Therefore go and make disciples of all nations….and surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and sup with him and he with me.  And the conqueror shall sit beside me on my throne as I myself have also conquered and sat down beside my Father on his throne.”      Revelation 3.20,21

“Grace be to you and peace from he who is and was and is coming, and from the seven spirits before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the prince over kings of earth.”  Revelation 1.4,5

“For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority.”    Colossians 2.9,10

The Israel of God is not one of the nations, nor shall our Messiah ever cast a vote in the assemblies of the nations.  Yeshua is one with the Father and his kingship is eternal, from the beginning of time to the end of time.  He came iconically into Jerusalem on a donkey to demonstrate that as king he came to bring peace to his people, to as many as receive him.

“Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.”    John 1.13

When Yeshua made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem it was not a dress rehearsal for some future event.  When Yeshua shall return in splendor to destroy the armies of lawlessness, John tells us that,

“On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.”      Revelation 19.16

Between that day when Yeshua entered Jerusalem on a donkey and the day when he shall return in splendor, there is no mention of a coronation in Scripture, for he is king on the heavenly throne – the throne over eternal Israel – yesterday, today, and forever. 

viii 

Heirs of the promises to Abraham

“Pilate had a notice prepared and fastened to the cross.  It read: JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS.”      John 19.19

When Charles DeGaulle was asked to compromise his expectations in the provisions for nations after World War II, due to the fact that only a minority of the French populace had openly opposed the Nazis, he replied, “I fought the Resistance: France fought the Resistance!”

So Yeshua stands in the council of heaven before the throne of God, announcing to all, “I paid the price of sin: my people have paid the price of sin.”  By God’s grace we are accepted in identity with Yeshua our king.  As king, Yeshua stood in for us his people.  He went to the cross for us, the king for his people.  In learning that Yeshua is King of the Jews, in learning that he is king over my soul in all royal power, I discover that I belong to the ancient holy people of God.  I discover that I share in the ancient promises to Abraham:

“You are all sons of God through faith in Messiah Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Messiah have clothed yourselves with Messiah.  There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Messiah Jesus.  If you belong to Messiah, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”            Galatians 3.26-29

This means that the promise which is the very definition of the hope of Israel is my promise also.  I live in the hope of Israel for eternity and I live in the hope of Israel in this present moment.  Furthermore, the birth pains of Israel are my birth pains, for the salvation of my life has depended on every nuance of the history of my people.  My own life was being saved as Moses led the descendants of Abraham out of Egypt.

The law given at Sinai was coming to earth for me, to guide me and direct me to know the ways of my God.

I ask, as Moses asked, “Teach me your ways so that I may know you and continue to find favor with you.”  When Yahveh, as royal Lord over Israel, calls his people to keep his commandments and be bound to him by covenant, my heart is there, seeking to be bound to him by covenant.

Like the people of Israel, I discover that my heart fails, that I am wayward, that I am prone to reserve certain chambers of my heart as my own, places where I am amazed that he must also rule.  I, like Israel, wait in my heart for the realization in me of the new covenant:

“The time is coming,” declares Yahveh, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.  It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant though I was a husband to them,” declares Yahveh.   “This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,” declares Yahveh.  “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.” Jeremiah 31.31-33  

“I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. They will be my people, and I will be their God.”     Ezekiel 11.19,20

“And afterward I will pour out my Spirit on all people….” Joel 2.28

ix 

The new covenant: the heart called to the last measure of devotion

As Yeshua last commemorated Passover with his disciples he lifted a cup of wine and told of his blood about to be given sacrificially at the cross to initiate and seal the new covenant:

Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you.  This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”    Matthew 26.27,28

What is a covenant?  It is a binding oath between individuals who wish to make the care and purpose of their lives coincident one with the other, even to the point of death.  As a life and death oath it is usually marked either by the enduring witness of some commemorative object or by the event of sacrifice, so witnessing the seriousness of the oath.

There are covenants of loyalty between equals.  Since ancient times, there are also covenants by which a sovereign binds himself to his people, where all the power of the king stands in defense of the life of his subject, and where the life of the subject is totally devoted to his king.  In such covenants there are expectations and there are promises, from sovereign and subject alike.  Such was God’s original covenant with Israel at Mount Sinai.

Under the old covenant it became clear that the guidance of the law and the will of a man are not sufficient to elevate him to grounds of real intimacy with his God.  The miracle of the new covenant is that God provides his Spirit to nourish us and teach us and give us a heart which desires his law, his will.

Yeshua held up the Passover cup, representing the shedding of his blood, and within hours he gave his life in covenant loyalty to redeem his people.  The significant fulfillment of his revolutionary promise, to impart to his subjects his Spiritual presence, was then initiated within days, on the feast of Pentecost.

In the journey of faith, we come to this moment when we are called beyond simple faith and trust, now to know that the sustenance of a life of loyalty within the covenant will come from God himself.  Yeshua says, Believe in me!  And then, to those who have a vision of his reality, he says, Follow me!

We are called to share in this covenant.  We are called to raise that glass and acknowledge his blood as shed for us.  We are called to enter into baptism claiming that his death is our death, claiming that we in our sinfulness are covered by the cleansing power of his blood. 

Should we go so far, then we go far beyond that simple belief which might have led us to that moment of baptism: we pass into the dreadful seriousness of a life and death covenant with the God who made us.

x 

A people apart

Our lives are now his alone.  We have accepted that with the price of his life he has bought us back from death and we are not our own.  We now share the understanding of Jeremiah:

“A man’s life is not his own; it is not for man to direct his steps.”

 Jeremiah 10.23

Our new life: He in us, and we in him, our lives contained in him:

My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.  I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.

   John 10.27,28

“Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also.”                                                                     John 12.26

We are contained in him and we are sustained by him:

“If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching.  My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.  He who does not love me will not obey my teaching.  These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me….The Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.”   John 14.23,24,26

Inside this covenant relationship with our God, we are separated, set apart to God:

“If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own.  As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world.  That is why the world hates you.  Remember the words I spoke to you: ‘No servant is greater than his master.’  If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also.”  John 15.19,20

“I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world.  My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.  They are not of the world, even as I am not of it.  Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world.  For them I sanctify [set apart] myself, that they too may be truly sanctified [set apart for God].”    John 17. 14-19

The final words of Yeshua’s great prayer before going to the cross are a promise that the journey to our God will never end, that he will continually draw us deeper and deeper into the knowledge of him, that more and more clearly we will discover the face of our God until that day comes when we see him as he is:

“Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me.  I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”   John 17.25,26          

Lawrence S. Jones

Chicago, 2013

email: lawrencestewartjones@gmail.com


[1] Colossians 2.9; Colossians 1.15,19

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FRAGMENTS

John 3.31-36: The witness of John the Baptist:

"The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is from the earth belongs to the earth, and speaks as one from the earth. The one who comes from heaven is above all. He testifies to what he has seen and heard, but no one accepts his testimony. The man who has accepted it has certified that God is truthful. For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spirit without limit. The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him.

Isaiah 19.19-25.
In that day there will be an altar to the Lord in the heart of Egypt, and a monument to the Lord at its border. It will be a sign and witness to the Lord Almighty in the land of Egypt. When they cry out to the Lord because of their oppressors, he will send them a savior and defender, and he will rescue them. So the Lord will make himself known to the Egyptians, and in that day they will acknowledge the Lord. They will worship with sacrificies and grain offerings; they will make vows to the Lord and keep them. The Lord will strike Egypt with a plague; he will strike them and heal them. They will turn to the Lord, and he will respond to their pleas and heal them. In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. The Assyrians will go to Egypt and the Egyptians to Assyria. The Egyptians and Assyrians will worship together. In that day Israel will be the third, along with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing on the earth. The Lord Almighty will bless them, saying, "Blessed be Egypt my people, Assyria my handiwork, and Israel my inheritance.

Psalm 87
He has set his foundation on the holy mountain;
the Lord loves the gates of Zion
more than all the dwellings of Jacob.
Glorious things are said of you,
O City of God:
"I will record Rahab and Babylon
among those who acknowledge me --
Philistia too, and Tyre, along with Cush --
and will say, 'This one was born in Zion.'"
Indeed of Zion it will be said,
"This one and that one were born in her,
and the Most High himself will establish her."
The Lord will write in the register of the peoples:
"This one was born in Zion."
As they make music they will sing,
"All my fountains [sources] are in you."

The great hymn of John Newton [Glorious things of thee are spoken, Zion, City of Our God, is based on Psalm 87 above. It represents the heart of the ancient love of Zion, before the advent of Herzl, the love of the City of God in its present transcendent reality, the City of those who love God. The banner of our city is Yeshua our king. By the hand of Yeshua, and by his hand alone, the day will come when our transcendent city will be reunited with the geographical city.

Isaiah 11.10
In that day the Root of Jesse [Yeshua our king] will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to him and his place of rest will be glorious. In that day the Lord will reach out his hand a second time to reclaim the remnant that is left of his people from Assyria, from Lower Egypt, from Upper Egypt, from Cush, from Elam, from Babylonia, from Hamath and from the islands of the sea. He will raise a banner for the nations [Yeshua our king] and gather the exiles of Israel; he will assemble the scattered people of Judah from the four quarters of the earth.

Isaiah 44.3,5
I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring,
and my blessing on your descendants....
One will say, "I belong to the Lord";
another will call himself by the name of Jacob;
still another will write on his hand,
"The Lord's,"
and will take the name Israel."

Isaiah 56.3,6,7,8
Let no foreigner who has bound himself to the Lord say,
"The Lord will surely exclude me from his people."
And let not any eunuch complain,
"I am only a dry tree."
...And foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord
to serve him,
to love the name of the Lord,
and to worship him,
all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it
and who hold fast to my covenant--
these I will bring to my holy mountain
and give them joy in my house of prayer.
Their burnt offerings and sacrifices
will be accepted on my altar;
for my house will be called
a house of prayer for all nations.
The Sovereign Lord declares --
he who gathers the exiles of Israel:
"I will gather still others to them
besides those already gathered."

Isaiah 66, excerpts:
"This is the one I esteem:
he who is humble and contrite in spirit,
and trembles at my word....
Rejoice with Jerusalem and be glad for her,
all you who love her;
rejoice greatly with her,
all you who mourn over her.
For you will nurse and be satisfied
at her comforting breasts;
you will drink deeply
and delight in her overflowing abundance....
"I will extend peace to her like a river,
and the wealth of nations like a flooding stream;
...See, the Lord is coming with fire,
and his chariots are like a whirlwind;
For with fire and with his sword
the Lord will execute judgment upon all men,...
And I,...am about to come and gather all nations and tongues, and they will come and see my glory.
I will set a sign among them, [Yeshua our king] and I will send some of those who survive to the nations -- to Tarshish, to the Libyans and Lydians...to Tubal and Greece, and to the distant islands that have not heard of my fame or seen my glory. They will proclaim my glory among the nations. And they will bring all your brothers, from all the nations, to my holy mountain in Jerusalem..

Daniel 7.13,14
In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man [Yeshua our king], coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

Daniel 4.34,35,37
AT the end of that time, I, Nebuchadnezzar, raised my eyes toward heaven...Then I praised the Most High; I honored and glorified him who lives forever.
His dominion is an eternal dominion;
his kingdom endures from generation to generation.
All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing.
He does as he pleases
with the powers of heaven
and the peoples of the earth.
No one can hold back his hand
or say to him: "What have you done?"
...Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and exalt and glorify the King of heaven, because everything he does is right and all his ways are just. And those who walk in pride he is able to humble.

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