Yeshua exemplifies living by faith and obedience to God’s word.
Matthew 4:4 RSV – But he answered, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.'”
When Yeshua was beginning the work that the Father had sent him to do, the gospels tell us that he was led into the desert wilderness to undergo some trials.
Matthew 4:1-4 RSV – Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And he fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterward he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” But he answered,” It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.‘”
Many people are not aware that the response of Yeshua here is actually a quote from the Tanakh, or the Old Testament. He says, “It is written,” but where was it written?
We have it recorded for us in the early chapters of the book of Deuteronomy. As Moses was preparing the Israelites to enter the land of Canaan, he was reminding them of all of the ways God had taken care of them during their wilderness journeys.
Deuteronomy 8:2-3 RSV – And you shall remember all the way which the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know; that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but that man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD.
The meaning that Moses is conveying is that physical food alone may sustain physical life, but man truly lives only through obeying what God has said.
The parallels in Yeshua’s usage of this quotation are striking: the Israelites spent forty years in the wilderness; Yeshua spent forty days fasting. The Israelites had been tested in the wilderness; Yeshua was being tested during his wilderness experience. The Israelites were to trust and obey God in everything; Yeshua was demonstrating trust and obedience to God in everything.
Moses had taught the ancient Israelites that obeying God would not only help them survive in the wilderness but would bring them a measure of prosperity in the land of Canaan.
Deuteronomy 30:15-16 RSV – “See, I have set before you this day life and good, death and evil. If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you this day, by loving the LORD your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his ordinances, then you shall live and multiply, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land which you are entering to take possession of it.
What Moses taught ancient Israel about the physical blessings of obedience, Yeshua built upon to teach about a quality of life that would go far beyond temporal prosperity in a specific land. He came to elevate the teachings of Moses into an everlasting spiritual reality that, through his disciples, would spread across the world, touching people from every nation.
Matthew 28:19-20 RSV – Go therefore and make disciples of all nations…teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you….”
During his ministry and teaching, Yeshua further clarified his use of the manna/life metaphor when he was challenged by some Jewish critics:
John 6:28-35 RSV – Then they [the Jews] said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” So they said to him, “Then what sign do you do, that we may see, and believe you? What work do you perform? Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'” Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven, and gives life to the world.” They said to him, “Lord, give us this bread always.” Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst.
The life that God gives goes far beyond the life of the flesh, which is nourished only by physical bread. The life that God provides is present within the person of his Son: his life and teaching, and his subsequent sacrificial death and resurrection. The life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Yeshua are the very representation of the Father which can bring life, but only when they are mixed with the repentant and obedient faith of the believer.
The Jews of Yeshua’s day understood how the Scriptures were intended to bring life, at least in principle, yet many of them chose not to believe that Yeshua was the Messiah. At one point, Yeshua confronts him with the following statements:
John 5:39-40, 46-47 RSV – You [Jews] search the scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness to me; yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. … If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?”
The Scriptures can bring us life, but only as we recognize their fulfillment in Messiah Yeshua. Apart from him, they can only bring partial life—what we might consider temporal blessings in this world. The wisdom that God’s word provides helps us to avoid traps like hypocrisy and covetousness and to pursue things like forgiveness and compassion. These things can help us in our interactions with others, thereby providing us with a better quality of life, and that certainly is not a bad thing in and of itself. However, if we accept Yeshua as the fulfillment of God’s word, all of the Scripture is now elevated to bring us not only an excelling quality of temporal life, but life that lasts forever.
John 12:49-50 NET – For I have not spoken from my own authority, but the Father himself who sent me has commanded me what I should say and what I should speak. And I know that his commandment is eternal life. Thus the things I say, I say just as the Father has told me.”
Yeshua equates his teachings with the very words of God, and as a faithful messenger, he spoke exactly what God had instructed him to say. This is why I contend that, as believers, we should filter everything related to biblical teaching through the words of Messiah. He presented himself as the sole example and instructor of truth amidst the varied and hypocritical leadership of the Jews in his day.
Matthew 23:1-12 NET – Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, “The experts in the law and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat. Therefore pay attention to what they tell you and do it. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they teach. They tie up heavy loads, hard to carry, and put them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing even to lift a finger to move them. They do all their deeds to be seen by people, for they make their phylacteries wide and their tassels long. They love the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues and elaborate greetings in the marketplaces, and to have people call them ‘Rabbi.’ But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher and you are all brothers. And call no one your ‘father’ on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. Nor are you to be called ‘teacher,’ for you have one teacher, the Christ. The greatest among you will be your servant. And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.
In his humility, ultimately exemplified in his sacrificial death and confirmed by his resurrection, Yeshua proved he was the one Teacher worthy of our attentiveness and our desire for learning about the true words of life.
This was aptly expressed by Peter when Yeshua’s teachings were challenged by the Jews.
John 6:66-69 NET – After this many of his disciples quit following him and did not accompany him any longer. So Jesus said to the twelve, “You don’t want to go away too, do you?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God!”
It is only our belief in and obedience to the words of God, and in the God-provided words and deeds of Yeshua, the true bread from heaven, that bring us true and everlasting life.
1 John 5:13 WEB – These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.
The miniseries on Titles for God’s people concludes with the Bride. This image of the Bride emphasizes all believers’ spiritual unity with Messiah, a narrative metaphor fulfilled in the Book of Revelation.
Core of the Bible podcast episode 129 – Titles for God’s people: The Bride of Christ
We are currently finishing up a little miniseries on the titles for God’s people. Over these few past episodes, we have been looking at the following terms in some detail: Believer and Christian, the Remnant and the Elect, and the Church and the Body of Christ. These are all terms that by most accounts are considered synonymous and applicable to the people today who claim to believe in Messiah. However, in these studies I have been looking at scriptural reasons as to why I believe some of those terms do not apply to God’s people today, and yet how God has worked within these various aspects of his people over the ages to accomplish specific things for the good of all.
Last time, we explored the Body of Christ and how that term is meant to reference the spiritual gathering of saints of all time, and not any one, physical organization on the earth. We now come to the final installment in this series on titles for God’s people: the Bride.
THE BRIDEGROOM IMAGERY
Before we begin to discuss the texts regarding the Bride of Christ, we would do well to review the basis or underpinning of this type of bride and bridegroom imagery as spoken of in the prophets. This would be the background canvas upon which Messiah would continue to paint during his ministry.
Some of the specific bridegroom terminology begins in the Messianic portions of Isaiah:
Isaiah 54:4-8 RSV – “Fear not, for you will not be ashamed; be not confounded, for you will not be put to shame; for you will forget the shame of your youth, and the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more. For your Maker is your husband, the LORD of hosts is his name; and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called. For the LORD has called you like a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit, like a wife of youth when she is cast off, says your God. For a brief moment I forsook you, but with great compassion I will gather you. In overflowing wrath for a moment I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you, says the LORD, your Redeemer.
God is spoken of as having betrothed Israel to himself. While he had to forsake her due to her unfaithfulness, there remained a promise of everlasting compassion when they were to be “gathered” again.
This same theme of a renewed hope for prophetic Zion after being forsaken is carried over into Isaiah 62:
Isaiah 62:1-5 RSV – For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, until her vindication goes forth as brightness, and her salvation as a burning torch. The nations shall see your vindication, and all the kings your glory; and you shall be called by a new name which the mouth of the LORD will give. You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the LORD, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate; but you shall be called My delight is in her, and your land Married; for the LORD delights in you, and your land shall be married. For as a young man marries a virgin, so shall your sons marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.
Here, Isaiah relates how prophetic Zion will ultimately be reunited to God and he will rejoice over her, “as a bridegroom rejoices over the bride”.
Hosea also related how God had to forsake Israel because of her constant unfaithfulness through idolatry:
Hosea 2:2-4 RSV – “Plead with your mother, plead–for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband–that she put away her harlotry from her face, and her adultery from between her breasts; lest I strip her naked and make her as in the day she was born, and make her like a wilderness, and set her like a parched land, and slay her with thirst. Upon her children also I will have no pity, because they are children of harlotry.
And yet, Hosea immediately shares the vision of renewed promise and restoration:
Hosea 2:14-16, 19-20 RSV – “Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her. And there I will give her her vineyards, and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth, as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt. “And in that day, says the LORD, you will call me, ‘My husband,’ and no longer will you call me, ‘My Ba’al.’ … And I will betroth you to me for ever; I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness; and you shall know the LORD.
Now we have to exercise care with these passages, because God is not actually marrying Israel, but he is using that familiar imagery to describe his relationship with his people. He created them out of nothing and took them to himself AS a husband would care for his wife. Since they were unfaithful and continued to pursue their idolatry, he cast them away AS in an act of divorce. Yet, he promised to regather them and AS a betrothal, reunite with them in righteousness, faithfulness and justice.
INTO THE NEW TESTAMENT WRITINGS
Although there were hundreds of years between the prophecies of Isaiah and Hosea and the ministry of Yeshua, we see both John the baptizer and Yeshua picking up this theme as an indication of prophetic fulfillment in their day.
John 3:28-30 RSV – You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him. He who has the bride is the bridegroom; the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice; therefore this joy of mine is now full. He must increase, but I must decrease.”
John recognizes his own role as one who is the predecessor of the representative Bridegroom, Yeshua the Messiah. Yeshua also availed himself of this bridegroom motif in his teachings on the restoration of the faithful remnant.
Matthew 9:14-15 RSV – Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come, when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.
Additionally, in his famous Kingdom parable about the wise and foolish maidens, Yeshua described the prepared and faithful remnant as being those who would be joining the bridegroom in the wedding feast, while the unprepared were locked outside when the bridegroom was to arrive unexpectedly.
Matthew 25:1-13 RSV – “Then the kingdom of heaven shall be compared to ten maidens who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, they all slumbered and slept. But at midnight there was a cry, ‘Behold, the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ Then all those maidens rose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise replied, ‘Perhaps there will not be enough for us and for you; go rather to the dealers and buy for yourselves.’ And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast; and the door was shut. Afterward the other maidens came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ But he replied, ‘Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.’ Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.
So we have seen how both Matthew and John conveyed this bridegroom motif in their gospels, but we can also point to Paul continuing this theme in his letters, as well.
2 Corinthians 11:2 LSB – For I am jealous for you [first century Corinthians] with a godly jealousy, for I betrothed you to one husband, so that I might present you [as] a pure virgin to Christ.
Ephesians 5:23, 25-27 – because the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of the body. … Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her to make her holy, cleansing her with the washing of water by the word. He did this to present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or anything like that, but holy and blameless.
Paul emphasized the self-sacrificial nature of the husband relationship of Messiah to the Church/Assembly, in order to make her clean, holy, and blameless before him.
This is an archetypical construct that harkens all the way back to the opening chapters of Genesis, revealing not only the fullness of the work of Messiah, but the fulfillment of the pattern laid down thousands of years earlier.
Ephesians 5:24, 28, 31-32 RSV – As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands. … Even so husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself…For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is a profound one, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church…
There are many parallels between the example and type exhibited by Adam and Eve with Christ and his Church or Assembly. Many of these have been brought out by John Gill, and English Baptist writer and theologian who ministered in the 1700’s. While this is an extended quote of his commentary on Ephesians 5, he lines out some of the more relevant and revealing typology parallels:
“…and indeed, the marriage of Adam and Eve was a type of Christ and his church; for in this the first Adam was a figure of him that was to come, as well as in being a federal head to his posterity:
“Adam was before Eve, so Christ was before his church;
“God thought it not proper that man should be alone, so neither Christ, but that he should have some fellows and companions with him:
“the formation of Eve from Adam was typical of the church’s production from Christ; she [Eve] was made of him while he was asleep, which sleep was from the Lord, and it was not an ordinary one; which may resemble the sufferings and death of Christ, which were from the Lord, and were not common; and which are the redemption of his church and people; and which secure their comfort and happiness, and wellbeing:
“she was taken out of his side, and built up a woman of one of his ribs; both the justification and sanctification of the church are from Christ, from the water and the blood which issued out of his side, when on the cross:
“the bringing and presentation of Eve to Adam has its mystery; it was God that brought her to him; and she was the same that was made out of him; and to the same Adam was she brought of whose rib she was made, and that not against her will: so it is God that draws souls to Christ, and espouses them to him, even the same that he has chosen in him, and Christ has redeemed by his blood; and to the same are they brought, who was wounded for their transgressions, and bruised for their sins; and they are made willing in the day of his power upon them, to come and give themselves to him.
“Adam’s consent and acknowledgment of Eve to be his wife, shadow forth Christ’s hearty reception and acknowledgment of the saints, as being of him, and his, when they are brought unto him under the influences of his grace and Spirit.”
All of these typological parallels convey the beautiful unity of God’s word from beginning to end. In a very real sense, the end was prophesied from the very beginning in the pictorial story of Adam and Eve, culminating in the marriage of the Second Adam to his virginal Bride (Christ and the purified Church Assembly). The Bride was to consist of the faithful remnant of Israel and those from among the nations who would also believe.
ABIDING BY TORAH
Now, because there are laws in torah concerning marriage and re-marriage, this concept of God restoring and re-marrying Israel (even symbolically as mentioned in the prophets) needs to be addressed, as well.
God’s own torah does not allow for a previously divorced wife to re-marry the same man:
Deuteronomy 24:1-4 RSV – “When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a bill of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, and she departs out of his house, and if she goes and becomes another man’s wife, and the latter husband dislikes her and writes her a bill of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter husband dies, who took her to be his wife, then her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after she has been defiled; for that is an abomination before the LORD, and you shall not bring guilt upon the land which the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance.
God had made it clear through the passages that we looked at in Isaiah and Hosea that he was, in no uncertain terms, forsaking his marital relationship with Israel and “sending her away” due to their unceasing idolatry. If this was the case, then how was God to gather, have compassion, and betroth himself once again to faithful Israel? How could he remarry the woman who had been defiled, since it’s technically a violation of his own torah?
We read earlier in Deuteronomy how divorce and/or death release a woman from the marriage covenant. Now if the woman is divorced only, the original husband is forbidden to remarry her after any subsequent marriage:
Deuteronomy 24:4 RSV – then her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after she has been defiled; for that is an abomination before the LORD…
However, if a husband or a wife dies, the marriage is dissolved.
Deuteronomy 24:3 RSV – …or if the latter husband dies, who took her to be his wife…
Death, therefore, according to torah, releases one from the bonds of marriage.
1 Corinthians 7:39 RSV – A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. If the husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord.
So, here is how I believe God worked the sending away of unfaithful Israel and yet was also able to take her faithful remnant back to himself without violating torah.
When Yeshua arrived, he was announced as, and assumed the role of, God’s representative bridegroom, a man born “under the law.” Yet, his sacrificial death upon the cross released God from the original symbolic bond of marriage to unfaithful Israel.
Additionally, Yeshua had taught that anyone who believed in him must be willing to give up their own life for him.
Matthew 16:24-25 RSV – Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
Accordingly, further instruction provided by the apostle Paul states that the faithful remnant of Israel who believed in Messiah were to consider themselves as having died.
Romans 6:3-4 RSV – Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death…
Colossians 2:12 RSV – and you were buried with him in baptism…
Not only was the faithful remnant buried with Christ, but they were resurrected with Christ.
Romans 6:4 RSV – We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
Colossians 2:12-13 RSV – and you were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you, who were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses…
Colossians 3:1-3 RSV – If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
Since his representative Messiah was dead and resurrected, and the faithful remnant was also considered dead and resurrected (or, born again), God, though his Messiah, was then free to re-marry his wife (i.e., the faithful remnant of Israel). The marriage of unfaithfulness had been dissolved, and a new marriage with a renewed people could take place through God’s representative and resurrected Messiah. This resurrection marriage was to take place “above,” that is, in heaven (another indicator that the Church/Assembly is a spiritual entity, not an earthly one).
Now we know that Messiah taught in the age of the resurrection there is no longer physical marriage to one another.
Matthew 22:30 RSV – For in the resurrection they [the faithful saints] neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.
Yeshua taught that those who are considered worthy to attain to the age of resurrection would no longer marry one another. However, this also can imply that there would be no longer marriage to one another because all are then considered married to Messiah for eternity. The second Adam is wedded to his Bride eternally, and the fruitful multiplying of the family was to be in the continued addition of believers as the Kingdom of God was to expand over the earth.
Now, of course, this is all pictorial and typological symbols. The ideas being conveyed by this imagery is that of a magnificent, royal wedding. There is great joy and celebration in a wedding. There is provision for the bride and a unity of purpose between the bridegroom and the bride. The bride and the groom now live together in blessing to “be fruitful and multiply.” These various attributes are representative of how God’s people will rejoice in his presence for eternity.
THE BRIDE OF THE APOCALYPSE
Now, of course, the fullest picture of this bride motif reaches its apex in the book of Revelation. The symbols and types employed by John in his prophetic work sharpen the contrast between the Harlot (unfaithful Israel) and the Bride (the faithful remnant).
Revelation 19:1-2, 7-9 RSV – After this I heard what seemed to be the loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, crying, “Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for his judgments are true and just; he has judged the great harlot who corrupted the earth with her fornication, and he has avenged on her the blood of his servants.” … Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; it was granted her to be clothed with fine linen, bright and pure”–for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are true words of God.”
The judgment and vengeance upon the harlot (unfaithful Israel) took place when Jerusalem was burned and the temple completely destroyed in 68-70 AD. It was at that time that the Bride (the faithful remnant) had made herself ready through the washing of her raiment in the blood of the Lamb, through martyrdom and through her righteous actions.
Revelation 21:9-10 RSV – Then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues, and spoke to me, saying, “Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.” And in the Spirit he carried me away to a great, high mountain, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God…
At this point in the narrative of Revelation 21, the bride having already become the wife of the Lamb implies that the wedding already took place at the culmination of the vengeance upon the harlot (that is, unfaithful Jerusalem). This is suggested by the events of Revelation 19.
Revelation 19:7 RSV – Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready…
Revelation 19:9, 17-18 RSV – And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are true words of God.” … Then I saw an angel standing in the sun, and with a loud voice he called to all the birds that fly in midheaven, “Come, gather for the great supper of God, to eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all men, both free and slave, both small and great.”
I believe the melding of the “marriage supper of the Lamb” with “the great supper of God” intimate that they were simultaneous events. The destruction of the unfaithful Harlot on the earth was the signification that the marriage of the Bride was taking place in the heavens.
The vision that John was seeing in Revelation 21 now shifts from the bride motif to the New Jerusalem/prophetic Zion motif. With the destruction of the unfaithful Harlot and the earthly city of Jerusalem, the Bride has now become signified by a New Jerusalem with all of the righteous influence of God, spiritually reigning above all those on the earth. The Bride now IS the New Jerusalem, “coming down out of heaven” from God. The Church/Assembly is that spiritual community of all time which is now to be over the world with its heavenly influence.
As we have seen in recent episodes, this was also ably captured by the writer of Hebrews:
Hebrews 12:22-24, 28 RSV – But you have come [perfect aorist/past tense] to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven, and to a judge who is God of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks more graciously than the blood of Abel. … Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe…
THIS is who the Church/Assembly is, exemplified through multiple layers of typology and pictorial fulfillment: the heavenly Jerusalem, Mount Zion of prophecy, the Assembly of the Firstborn, the Kingdom which cannot be shaken. This is the imagery that John also saw in his vision in the closing chapters of the book of Revelation.
Revelation 21:24-27 RSV – By its light shall the nations walk [meaning it shall have influence over the entire earth]; and the kings of the earth shall bring their glory into it, and its gates shall never be shut by day–and there shall be no night there; they shall bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. But nothing unclean shall enter it, nor any one who practices abomination or falsehood, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.
What’s fascinating in these closing chapters of Revelation is that even in the “new heavens and the new earth” of the restoration, there is still mention of unclean things, abominations, and falsehoods. These are further enumerated in chapter 22:
Revelation 22:14-15 RSV – Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates. Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and fornicators and murderers and idolaters, and every one who loves and practices falsehood.
If the new heavens and new earth is the restoration of the entire universe, why are there still dogs, sorcerers, fornicators, murderers, idolaters and liars outside of the City? I believe this is because new heavens and the new earth are representative, not of a new physical universe, but of the New Covenant in Messiah, the new paradigm which had begun two millennia ago. This new City, the Assembly of the Firstborn, exists above the ongoing immorality of the world, and yet is accessible to those who choose to “wash their robes,” that is, repent of their evil works and to give up their own lives, coming to Messiah through the always-open gates of the City. The City is designed to be the eternal light for all generations.
Remember what Yeshua taught in the Sermon on the Mount:
Matthew 5:14, 16 RSV – “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid. … Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.
I believe he was alluding to this state of the eternal new City: Zion.
Revelation 22:1-5 RSV – Then he showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. There shall no more be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and his servants shall worship him; they shall see his face, and his name shall be on their foreheads. And night shall be no more; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they shall reign for ever and ever.
Revelation 22:14 RSV – Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates.
What is this talking about if not a restoration of all things to the original covenantal relationship with the archetypal Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden? The City on the Hill is the New Jerusalem, the city where the ideals of Eden are restored. Within the New City is free access to the tree of life and the river of life. The throne of God is now where he dwells among his people, and that of the Lamb: the Second Adam, who, in the image of God, reigns and has dominion with his Bride over the entire earth, just as God designed all things to be from the very beginning.
Genesis 1:27-28 RSV – So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”
The mission of God’s people now is to “be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth and subdue it.” However, the sea (typically representative of the gentile nations in the prophets) no longer exists, which suggests that the nations can now be blended with the faithful to participate in the City with the redeemed.
Revelation 22:17 RSV – The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” And let him who hears say, “Come.” And let him who is thirsty come, let him who desires take the water of life without price.
Notice, it is the Spirit who draws people to God, and the Bride is the example of God’s faithfulness as a standing invitation to all who will come to take the water of life.
At his meeting with the Samaritan woman at the well, Yeshua had stated:
John 4:10 RSV – “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”
John 7:38 RSV – He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water.'”
Revelation 7:17 RSV – For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water; and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
In summary, then, the Bride of Christ is the spiritual community of the faithful saints through all ages. It is only when joined with Messiah that the Bride can bear fruit. As the New Jerusalem, the Bride is the habitation of God and the Lamb, and the gates are never shut, inviting all who will to come. The living water of the holy Spirit flows from the central heights of the City, and the tree of life provides healing for the nations.
This imagery is so vivid and compelling that it should inspire and energize us to be that faithful Bride, and to seek to bear fruit for God, faithfully representing the light of that City on a hill to all.
Well, this concludes not only our brief study of the Bride of Christ, but of our miniseries on the Titles for God’s People. Although this overall study has been wide-ranging and covered many different aspects of God’s relationship with his people, from the Hebrew qahal (congregation) through the Greek ekklesia (assembly), it is my sincere hope that you have had opportunities to explore ideas and connections that you may not have seen before. I hope those are points that you will continue to study out on your own with the goal of all of us growing closer to Messiah, and closer to one another.
The true Body of Christ represents all believers unified by faith and love, transcending physical assemblies and denominations.
Last time, I discussed the Church (or the Assembly) and concluded that the true Church, the Assembly of Messiah, is that spiritual entity which is built upon faith in him. If you have not yet read or listened to that article, I would suggest reviewing it ahead of today’s discussion, as I will be building on terminology that was explained in detail there. Today, I will continue to focus on the spiritual nature of the Assembly of God’s people as we discuss the Body of Christ, because the two terms are equated in the biblical writings.
THE BODY OF CHRIST
In his writings to the various congregations, Paul began to use the term of the body of Messiah to mean the collective group of Messianic believers that was in the process of becoming a new sect amidst the synagogues.
That the body and the church (or the Assembly) were considered synonymous by Paul can be demonstrated in these famous passages he wrote to the believers in Ephesus and Colosse:
Ephesians 1:22-23 – And he [God] subjected everything under his [Messiah’s] feet and appointed him as head over everything for the assembly, which is his body, the fullness of the one who fills all things in every way.
Colossians 1:18, 24 – He [Messiah] is also the head of the body, the assembly … Now I rejoice in my sufferings for you, and I am completing in my flesh what is lacking in Messiah’s afflictions for his body, that is, the assembly.
So we can see how Paul clearly equated the body of Messiah with Messiah’s church/assembly. When the term body was used in the context of the Assembly, Paul was using the term in that universal, overall sense that we saw previously in Acts 9:31.
Acts 9:31 ESV – So the church [that is, the Assembly] throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied.
The body was never equated with the local assembly or gathering, as in “the body at Colosse” or “the body at Thessolonica.” It was also not used of a specific building or place of worship, but always with the generalized meaning of the ekklesia, the overall growing Assembly of “called out ones.”
The apostle Paul made ample use of the body as a metaphor for how the individual believers, when taken together as a whole group, collectively were to make up the “body” of Messiah as his representative people. These were the scattered believers among the synagogues in which he conducted his missionary activities, some of which had even begun new, Messianic-based synagogue/assemblies.
UNITY AND FUNCTION IN THE BODY
What is interesting about the term the body of Christ/Messiah as it occurred in Paul’s writings is that he always seemed to use it in the context of either defining the function of individual members within the larger group or providing a metaphor for unity among competing factions.
For example, Paul used the body metaphor as a way of describing the function of the different spiritual gifts that had been given to them, just like individual body parts, were to have been supplementing the unity they already possessed with each other, not creating further division.
Romans 12:4-6 – Now as we have many parts in one body, and all the parts do not have the same function, in the same way we who are many are one body in Messiah and individually members of one another. According to the grace given to us, we have different gifts…
1 Corinthians 12:4-7 – Now there are different gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different ministries, but the same Lord. And there are different activities, but the same God works all of them in each person. A manifestation of the Spirit is given to each person for the common good…
Notice how Paul said these gifts were individual manifestations of the spiritual unity they already possessed, by the grace of God, within the spiritual body of Messiah. The unique gifts of the Spirit had been given also for the good of the overall Assembly, the body of Messiah, and not just for the benefit of an individual or a local, earthly congregation. This is why we see gifted individuals like Paul, Barnabas, Timothy, Stephen, Mark, etc. traveling between congregations, to build up the overall Assembly, the Body of Messiah at that time.
1 Corinthians 12:12-14 – For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body–Jews or Greeks, slaves or free–and all were made to drink of one Spirit. For the body does not consist of one member but of many.
Paul says there is one Body, created by immersion into that one Body by one Spirit. This is the very definition of an eternal, spiritual entity. If it is a spiritual baptism that joins the body together, then that Body, by default, must be a spiritual bodyor collection of individuals; hence, a spiritual Assembly, not an earthly one. This is why the body of Messiah is not a single physical assembly of people on the earth, but rather a spiritual assembly of all those who have ever professed Yeshua as the Messiah. This is also why the Body, as a spiritual entity, was to have been manifested, not through physical organizations, but through spiritual gifts as signs to the non-believing Jews of the day.
Paul appeared to have been building on the foundation of spiritual baptism laid down by both John the Baptizer and Yeshua, as they had taught of the necessity of a spiritual baptism:
Mark 1:8 – I indeed have baptized you with water: but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.
Luke 3:16 – John answered, saying to [them] all, I indeed baptize you with water; but one mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose: he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit, and with fire:
Acts 1:5 – [Yeshua says:] for John baptized with water, but before many days you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”
So it’s not surprising that the apostle Paul continued to build on that premise, that the believers had been spiritually baptized by one Spirit into one spiritual Body of believers.
UNITY THROUGH DIVERSITY IN STATION OF LIFE
In other instances, beyond the diversity of the spiritual gifts they had received, Paul uses the metaphor of the Body in the context of providing for spiritual unity through diversity of background or station in life: Jew or Greek, slave or free, man or woman. The radical ideal of this level of equality among believers in Paul’s day cannot be overstated. There have been no historical equivalents in antiquity. In first-century Judea and throughout the Roman world, class division, elitism, gender inequity and human rights abuses were more pervasive than in our current cultures, even with all of our current societal failings. Yet, Paul stressed the unity that should be evident among believing communities:
Galatians 3:27-28 – For those of you who were baptized into Messiah have been clothed with Messiah. There is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female; since you are all one in Messiah Yeshua.
1 Corinthians 12:12-14 – For just as the body is one and has many parts, and all the parts of that body, though many, are one body — so also is Messiah. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body — whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free — and we were all given one Spirit to drink. Indeed, the body is not one part but many.
1 Corinthians 12:23-25 – And those parts of the body that we consider less honorable, we clothe these with greater honor, and our unrespectable parts are treated with greater respect, which our respectable parts do not need. Instead, God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the less honorable, so that there would be no division in the body, but that the members would have the same concern for each other.
Paul taught that the best way to provide for the balance and overcome those divisions was not by seeking the best or most important spiritual gifts, or by emphasizing national or class supremacy, but through unified concern and love for one another, because only the love that was of God had the capacity to resolve everything and provide for lasting unity.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8 – Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not arrogant, is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not irritable, and does not keep a record of wrongs. Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends…
If this kind of love is eternal, then it is a spiritual reality. But the beauty of the gospel message is that this type of love is a spiritual reality in heaven that can be uniquely expressed in the here and now. The entire summary of Paul’s argument over these chapters on spiritual gifts is that love is THE single spiritual ideal that ALL within the Body of Messiah were to attain to express here on earth. All of the other gifts combined are of no consequence if they were not expressing God’s love in their lives. Love is the “more excellent way” (1 Cor. 12:31).
Once again, Paul appeared to have been building on what Yeshua had previously taught about the primary importance of the expression of this spiritual love.
Mat 5:44 – But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
Mat 22:37, 39 – 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. … 39 And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
Luke 6:35 – But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the selfish.
John 13:35 – By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
John 15:10, 12, 17 – 10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. … 12 This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. … 17 This I command you, to love one another.
The other apostolic writings agree on expressing this spiritual love, even to the point that if one does not have love for others that it is likely an indicator that one needs to evaluate the sincerity of their own faith.
James 2:8 RSV – If you really fulfil the royal law, according to the scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you do well.
1 Peter 1:22 RSV – Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere love of the brethren, love one another earnestly from the heart.
1 Peter 3:8 RSV – Finally, all of you, have unity of spirit, sympathy, love of the brethren, a tender heart and a humble mind.
1 Peter 4:8 RSV – Above all hold unfailing your love for one another, since love covers a multitude of sins.
1 John 4:7-8 RSV – Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God, and he who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God; for God is love.
Yeshua expected that his followers would love him as their Lord, love God as their Father, love one another, and even love their enemies. This is the root of the spiritual unity that would bind his spiritual Assembly, his body, together forever, and it transcends all space and time. I believe that this is why the body of Messiah, his assembly, feels like it should be present now, even though it is not discernible in any one physical organization. There is no one physical church, denomination, or organization on the earth which currently can be identified as the place where his Body exists. And yet, every person who has encountered Yahweh God through his Spirit and his Word has been baptized by his Spirit into this eternal, unseen fellowship of the Kingdom. There is only one true church or assembly, but it is that spiritual assembly of Messiah which is eternal in the heavens. Believers today demonstrate their spiritual participation in that assembly by expressing the spiritual love that only God can provide when their hearts have been renewed. It is in this way that the Body of Christ becomes evident on the earth.
1 John 4:7-8 – Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
Faith in Yeshua as God’s Son, the Anointed Lord of his Kingdom, and love born of a repentant and renewed heart is what defines the true Body of Messiah, his Assembly.
John 3:3, 6 KJV – (Yeshua speaking)…Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. … That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Yeshua taught that the spiritual Kingdom of God had drawn near, and it required repentance and new birth from above to experience it. We, therefore, are a Kingdom people. Yeshua said his kingdom was “not of (or from) this world.” This type of love does not emanate from this world; it comes from above.
He also said his Assembly that he would build would exist beyond the gates of the realm of death. Everything he taught was fulfilling the natural types and shadows, and elevating them into eternal, spiritual realities where they could exist for all time.
THE BODY AS A TEMPLE
Yeshua, through the revelation expressed to the apostle John, taught about a spiritual temple where believers would dwell in God’s presence:
Revelation 3:12 RSV – He who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God; never shall he go out of it, and I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem which comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name.
Likewise, both Peter and Paul taught that believers had come to that spiritual temple.
1 Peter 2:4-5 ESV – As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
1 Corinthians 3:16-17 RSV – Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If any one destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and that temple you are.
1 Corinthians 6:19 RSV – Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? You are not your own;
2 Corinthians 6:16 RSV – What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will live in them and move among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
Ephesians 2:17-22 RSV – And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Messiah Yeshua himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built into it for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.
If the physical body of Messiah was a temple of God because of the indwelling holy Spirit with which he was anointed, then it follows that the spiritual body of his believers would also become a spiritual temple in which God would dwell, as he had prophesied.
The physical temple in Jerusalem was in its final days during this covenantal transition until its destruction in 70 AD. Through this event, God was making it clear that the Jewish cultic sacrifices and rituals would no longer be necessary, as the new covenant was a spiritual covenant available to all people by faith in Messiah, no longer based in a central location, but would be spread to the world. This was also a fulfillment of the prophecy of Yeshua during his discussion with the Samaritan woman at the well:
John 4:20-21 CSB – “Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.” Jesus told her, “Believe me, woman, an hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.
All of the prophecies foretold of nations coming to Zion, the spiritual city that would supersede the physical Jerusalem. It was to be a heavenly (spiritual) Jerusalem, as described by the writer of Hebrews, and the apostle John in the book of the Revelation:
Hebrews 12:22-23 RSV – But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven, and to a judge who is God of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect…
To further illustrate the spiritual nature of the new creation, not only is the temple shown to be the combined unity of all of those whom God has called, the temple imagery ultimately dissolves into the overall glory of the Father and the Son.
Revelation 21:22 RSV – And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.
Paul wrote about it this way:
1 Corinthians 15:28 CSB – When everything is subject to Christ, then the Son himself will also be subject to the one who subjected everything to him, so that God may be all in all.
This is the body of believers in and among whom God and the Lamb dwell. It is the body of believers from all ages who are in God’s presence for all eternity.
UNITY THROUGH LOVE
So, my question to you is this: why do we keep looking on the earth for that which is eternal only in the heavens?
And this is the conclusion I have reached regarding the assembly, the body of Christ. It does not reside in any one group or organization here on earth. Equally, it is not a sum of all of the different Christian factions present in the world today. It cannot be the collective of all denominations, as we continue to be separated by doctrinal minutiae and creedal stances, many of which are diametrically opposed to one another. Even the members within each faction do not subscribe completely to the creeds and doctrine of their respective denomination. Each group also contains within itself its share of “tares among the wheat,” those insincere or hypocritical people who may only have a surface assent to biblical principles but who are not exhibiting the spiritual fruit of love in their lives. These facts alone demonstrate how a unified Body of Christ does not exist (in a physical sense) on the earth today.
As critical as that may make me appear, I’m beginning to believe that all of these differing theological positions are actually by way of intentional design by God, because the differing denominational beliefs among Bible believers should not be the barrier to unity among God’s people, but the means of reestablishing our true unity. True unity can only be established in love, and only love can overcome differences of opinion. When we learn to express our differences in love, we open lines of communication previously blocked by competing traditions. We may not all agree on everything, but we can be united in love in our devotion to God and to one another.
Psalm 133:1, 3 ESV – Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity! … It is like the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion! For there the LORD has commanded the blessing, life forevermore.
While the Bible states that it is a blessing to live in harmony and agreement with others, we must not hold out total agreement as the uniting factor. It must be love which reveals the unity we already possess in Christ, not creedal agreement. This is a difficult distinction but one that we must be mature enough to accept and to practice. If we are to love even our enemies, as Yeshua taught, we should certainly be able to love our brothers. When the rest of the world can begin to see God’s children loving one another in spite of their differences, they will be more likely to be drawn to a loving community rather than one that shoots arrows at each other.
Yeshua called us to be peace makers, not just peace lovers. We must actively work to make peace with all others, as much as it depends on us individually. This is not intuitive or natural from a fleshly perspective, but it is a godly ability that he provides when we become new creations in him.
Romans 15:1-7 NLT – We who are strong must be considerate of those who are sensitive about things like this. We must not just please ourselves. We should help others do what is right and build them up in the Lord. For even Christ didn’t live to please himself. As the Scriptures say, “The insults of those who insult you, O God, have fallen on me.” Such things were written in the Scriptures long ago to teach us. And the Scriptures give us hope and encouragement as we wait patiently for God’s promises to be fulfilled. May God, who gives this patience and encouragement, help you live in complete harmony with each other, as is fitting for followers of Christ Jesus. Then all of you can join together with one voice, giving praise and glory to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, accept each other just as Christ has accepted you so that God will be given glory.
God, therefore, receives glory when we accept each other.
I have understood that this maturity could only be accomplished when faithful believers were to pass into the next age beyond this existence, the age of the resurrection. In that age, the believers would no longer be pulled apart by competing theological doctrines. While it is true the age of the resurrection began when God redeemed his first-century people, including the saints of old, that age continues to this day. The saints were raised and given immortal bodies, and were to exist in his presence forever. From that point forward, we now live in the age that when we, as believers, die, we are brought into his presence immediately. This is how Yeshua overcame death. He was the new Adam, the firstfruit of the new creation and we are the rest of the crop that is harvested as it ripens.
I believe it is in one sense that we are living in the age of resurrection predicted by Messiah, not because we have already attained our spiritual-body resurrection, but because death no longer has its grip on those who place their faith in Messiah. He has become the life-giving Spirit who provides eternal life to those who repent of sinfulness and trust in him. This will be fulfilled when we pass from this life into his eternal presence. Unity on the earth in this day and age is complicated with Statements of Faith and creeds and doctrinal disagreements over the minutiae of Scriptural texts. However, to be “in Christ” is to have life and unity within the spiritual Body of Christ now, by the grace of God, and these petty things shall be resolved when we are in his Presence forever.
HOW WE ARE TO LEARN AND GROW
If there is no one, true “church” on the earth, how are we to learn and grow in spiritual things? Don’t we need some sort of authoritative teacher or apostolic tradition to guide us? Well, we already have both!
Even though he never personally wrote a book, we have a single faithful Teacher: Messiah.
Matthew 23:8-10 NKJV – “But you, do not be called ‘Rabbi’; for One is your Teacher, the Christ, and you are all brethren. “Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven. “And do not be called teachers; for One is your Teacher, the Christ.
Additionally, those who were his apostles wrote down all doctrine necessary for our walk with God which has been provided to us in the Scriptures that we have.
2 Peter 1:13-15 ESV – I think it right, as long as I am in this body, to stir you up by way of reminder, since I know that the putting off of my body will be soon, as our Lord Jesus Christ made clear to me. And I will make every effort so that after my departure you may be able at any time to recall these things.
1 John 1:1-3 ESV – That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life– the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us– that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.
While this was written to first-century believers awaiting the imminent return of Messiah, I believe the same Spirit of God helps us understand Messiah’s teachings today because we are all baptized into that one spiritual Body by one Spirit for all time. Being led by the Spirit in the way of righteousness is the fulfillment of all that God had desired to do, as prophesied numerous times throughout the Scriptures:
Isaiah 2:3 – and many peoples shall come, and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
Isaiah 54:13 – All your sons shall be taught by the LORD, and great shall be the prosperity of your sons.
Jeremiah 31:33-34 – But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each man teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
Micah 4:2 – and many nations shall come, and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
Hebrews 8:11 – And they shall not teach every one his fellow or every one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all shall know me, from the least of them to the greatest.
John 6:45 – It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Every one who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.
I believe that God teaches those who are repentant, renewing their hearts and drawing them to himself through his Spirit, realized in Messiah, the Lord of his Kingdom.
In summary, I believe the Body of Christ/Messiah is synonymous with the universal Assembly/Church of Messiah. It is a spiritual collection of believers from all ages which is defined as those who have placed their faith in Yeshua as the Messiah (or Anointed One) of God, and who seek first his Kingdom by expressing God’s love from renewed hearts. We must exercise care if we look for a representative authoritative organization of his Body on the earth. If there was to be such a thing as a single, “true” Church, just like any other representative thing, it could become idolatrous because its adherents would begin to rely more on that Church than on the God of that church. This was what had happened to the Jews in Yeshua’s day; they had put their traditions above the true intent of God’s Torah and had created an idolatrous system, “the mother of all harlots” (Revelation 17:5) which God, in righteous judgment, had needed to destroy.
But out from the destruction of the idolatrous entity, a new body had been formed from the deep roots of Abraham’s faith: the Body of Christ. Therefore, by establishing his church as a spiritual assembly, Messiah placed his community outside the reach of sin and corruption in this world; a perfect Bride which would live and rule with him in God’s image for eternity.
This will be the final topic next time in our review of the titles for God’s people: the Bride of Christ.
This verse emphasizes compassion for doubters, balancing kindness with discernment in faith discussions.
“Be merciful to those who doubt.”
This verse from the NIV seems to be encouraging believers to a noble aspect of respecting those among themselves who may have doubts about certain aspects of the faith. If we bear with them in kindness and gentleness, they may be more thoroughly convinced after further consideration of the facts.
To me, this is a very appealing application of this ideal. It can be likened to Paul’s admonition to Timothy:
2 Timothy 2:24-25 RSV – And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kindly to everyone, an apt teacher, forbearing, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant that they will repent and come to know the truth…
While this may be a pleasing and not untrue application of that sentiment, it glosses over the context and the more likely application that the author of the little epistle may have intended.
You see, this verse will give you differing interpretations based on which English translation you are using. Here are some indications of the same passage in varying English translations below:
Good News Translation – Show mercy toward those who have doubts;
International Standard Version – Show mercy to those who have doubts.
Majority Standard Bible – And indeed, have mercy on some, making a distinction;
NET Bible – And have mercy on those who waver;
New Heart English Bible – And be merciful on those who doubt,
Webster’s Bible Translation – And of some have compassion, making a difference:
Weymouth New Testament – Some, when they argue with you, you must endeavor to convince;
World English Bible – On some have compassion, making a distinction,
Notice how interpretations can vary by translation. The idea of having compassion or mercy remains constant, but is it to have compassion for those who doubt, or have compassion by making a difference (Webster) or to have compassion by making some sort of a distinction (World English Bible)?
Looking at some of the older literal versions (those English versions that try to carry word for word meaning across into the language), they carry a slightly different meaning than having compassion on those who doubt:
Young’s Literal Translation – and to some be kind, judging thoroughly,
Smith’s Literal Translation – And truly compassionate some, discriminating:
These imply there is some type of discrimination or judgment that needs to be taking place, albeit with compassion. I think these are getting closer to the real meaning of the verse. This becomes more obvious when we look at the verse in its larger surrounding context:
Jude 1:17-23: “But you, beloved, remember the words which have been spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. They said to you that “In the last time there will be mockers, walking after their own ungodly lusts.” These are they who cause divisions, and are sensual, not having the Spirit. But you, beloved, keep building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit. Keep yourselves in God’s love, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. On some have compassion, making a distinction, and some save, snatching them out of the fire with fear, hating even the clothing stained by the flesh.”
This larger context provides us a little more guidance in how this verse can be righty understood. The “some” upon whom the believers were to “have compassion” appear to be those among the “mockers” who were only viewing things with their senses. These people, most likely from among the Jews who did not believe in Yeshua as Messiah, were causing divisions among the believers. These were the ones upon whom the believers were to have compassion, all the while “keeping themselves in God’s love.”
So, even though we should be caring and encouraging to those among the believers who may be having difficulties with the outworking of their faith, this verse appears to be more evangelistic in nature. We should always exhibit God’s love toward others; but in another sense, we constantly need to exercise godly discernment, “making a distinction,” to ensure we are not simply casting our pearls before swine, as Yeshua taught.
Not all of the titles we see in the Bible apply to God’s people today.
Core of the Bible podcast #125: Titles for God’s people – Believers and Christians
Over the next several weeks, I will be exploring the topic of titles used to describe God’s people throughout the Bible, but primarily titles used for his first century people in the writings of the New Testament. These terms do indeed all have significance and definitions are important, which is why I am taking the time to break down biblical terms so we can have a better grasp of how to apply them appropriately.
We will be looking at the following terms in some detail: believer and Christian, the Remnant and the Elect, the Church and the Body, and the Bride of Christ. These are all terms that by most accounts are considered synonymous and applicable to the people today who claim to believe in Messiah. However, I intend to look at scriptural reasons as to why I believe this is not the case, how most of those terms do not apply to God’s people today, and yet how God has worked within these various aspects of his people over the ages to accomplish specific things for the good of all.
As is usually the case, I began this as a single essay, but as I continued to delve into the particulars of these various designations I found that more and more details would present themselves for further study. Hopefully, breaking some of these up into smaller segments will be easier to grasp the essential points along with some relatively unusual perspectives for further study on your own.
Believers
Let’s begin with a basic term that is used to describe God’s people throughout the Bible: belief. You may notice that generally when I speak of those who follow Yahweh and Messiah Yeshua, I choose to use the term believers rather than Christians. This is the one term out of all of those previously mentioned which I believe does apply to God’s people today. This stems from the thrust of the biblical narrative and some particulars about the designation of Christian (which we will explore in a little bit).
All throughout the Bible there are people who are listed as those who believe and also those who do not believe.
Exodus 4:5 – “This will take place,” he continued, “so that they will believe that Yahweh, the God of their ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.”
Deuteronomy 9:23 – “When Yahweh sent you from Kadesh-barnea, he said, ‘Go up and possess the land I have given you’; you rebelled against the command of Yahweh your God. You did not believe or obey him.
2 Kings 17:14 – But they would not listen. Instead they became obstinate like their ancestors who did not believe Yahweh their God.
Psalm 78:32 – Despite all this, they kept sinning and did not believe his wondrous works.
Isaiah 43:10 – “You are my witnesses” — this is Yahweh’s declaration — “and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. No god was formed before me, and there will be none after me.
An interesting facet to all of these belief passages in the Tanakh is that they are expressed within the context of Israel; as in, there are those who believe and who do not believe in Yahweh within the nation of Israel. It is not used as a phrase for those outside of the national identity. As we move through the discussion in the coming studies, you will see how that becomes an important understanding in terms of God’s dealings with his people, especially when we come to consider the terms “remnant” and “elect”.
In the New Testament, we find belief, especially a belief in Messiah (which is said to be an indication of receiving him) to be a core aspect of Messiah’s purpose:
John 1:11-12 – He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, he gave them the right to be children of God, to those who believe in his name,
John 6:29 – Yeshua replied, “This is the work of God – that you believe in the one he has sent.”
John 14:1 – “Don’t let your heart be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.
Followers of Messiah even used this type of descriptive terminology:
Acts 16:15 – After she and her household were baptized, she urged us, “If you consider me to be believing in the Lord, come and stay at my house.” And she persuaded us.
Acts 16:34 – He brought them into his house, set a meal before them, and rejoiced because he had come to believe in God with his entire household.
The writer to the Hebrews makes it clear that faith is essential to pleasing God:
Hebrews 11:6 – Now without faith it is impossible to please God, since the one who draws near to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
The apostle Paul emphasized that belief was the foundation of the collective group of those who were in Messiah:
Romans 3:22 – The righteousness of God is through faith in Yeshua Messiah to all who believe, since there is no distinction.
But then, in another passage, Paul draws a more specific distinction between those who were to be considered believers with those who were non-believers. In contrast with the Tanakh passages which seemed to focus on believers and non-believers within the nation of Israel, Paul appears to be discussing non-believers in the wider context of the general population of Corinth, known for its idolatry.
2 Corinthians 6:14-15 – Do not be yoked together with those who do not believe. For what partnership is there between righteousness and lawlessness? Or what fellowship does light have with darkness? What agreement does Messiah have with Belial? Or what does a believer have in common with an non-believer?
Now, it could be argued that Paul was addressing those who claimed to be among the scattered Israelites in Corinth who gave lip service to Yahweh and yet were just as likely to be found among the idolatrous temples of the culture around them. In this passage, Paul uses this unusual term Belial, along with lawlessness and darkness, as contrasting terms to Messiah. Since this appears to be the only place this term Belial is used in the New Testament Greek, if we pursue this term back to its Hebrew root, we find it less of a proper name and more of a description of those who were considered wicked or worthless.
Deuteronomy 13:12-14 – “If you hear it said about one of your cities Yahweh your God is giving you to live in, “that wicked men have sprung up among you, led the inhabitants of their city astray, and said, ‘Let’s go and worship other gods,’ which you have not known, “you are to inquire, investigate, and interrogate thoroughly…
1 Samuel 2:12 – Eli’s sons were wicked men; they did not respect Yahweh
2 Samuel 23:6 – But all the wicked are like thorns raked aside; they can never be picked up by hand.
2 Chronicles 13:7 – “Then worthless and wicked men gathered around him to resist Rehoboam son of Solomon when Rehoboam was young, inexperienced, and unable to assert himself against them.
Proverbs 6:12 – A worthless person, a wicked man goes around speaking dishonestly,
Nahum 1:11 – One has gone out from you, who plots evil against Yahweh, and is a wicked counselor.
Sometimes the term used in these passages is the phrase ben belial, meaning “a son of wickedness/worthlessness”. It is from this Hebraism that the term could be considered as a proper name of some wicked entity, sometimes associated with Satan. But to be a “son of” something was to be considered the offspring of, or participant in, something larger than oneself.
Exodus 19:6 – and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the sons of Israel.”
These sons of Israel weren’t just Jacob’s sons particularly, because there were also some Egyptians and others who had come out of Egypt with the Hebrews at that time, but it is here speaking of participants in the nation of Israel, much like we might say “sons of America” today.
Matthew 8:12 – “But the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
Here, Yeshua uses the same type of language regarding those who were considered to be participants within the Kingdom of God, yet were being rejected for their lack of faith.
To be a son in the most basic sense of the Hebrew is to be a builder, as in the builder of the family line or family name. In this sense, to be a son of the Kingdom is to be a builder of the Kingdom. To be a son of belial is to be a builder of wickedness and worthlessness. And in the passage of 2 Corinthians where Paul is drawing a distinction between those of Messiah and those of Belial, whether these individuals were simply wicked fellow citizens of their pagan culture or if they were lawless scattered Israelites, either way, these individuals are the ones whom Paul is warning believers in Messiah to stay away from.
In the Bible, it is also clear that belief is closely aligned with and only visible through actions and lifestyle. You may recall that the Tanakh passages we reviewed earlier use this phrase as a verb describing an action, believing and obeying or not believing and remaining obstinate or disobedient. In the New Testament writings, James defines this Hebraic way of understanding faith a little further:
James 2:17-18 – In the same way faith, if it does not have works, is dead by itself. But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without works, and I will show you faith by my works.
And this is one of the places where I get on my little hobby horse about English translations (and there are many!). In the 2 Corinthians 6 passage, Paul uses the term “non-believer” as a contrast to those who are in Messiah. Many English Bibles might phrase this statement by rendering it as “unbeliever”. While this is most likely just me splitting semantic hairs (please bear with me), this term “unbeliever” in English is a phrase which I greatly dislike because it seems imprecise when discussing this biblical concept. To me it is a nonsensical term; how can you un-believe something? You either believe it or you don’t. In the original Greek, non-believers are called apistos which literally means faithless, without demonstrating faith in Yahweh.
I think the phrase “unbeliever” bothers me because it appears to describe an inherent characteristic of unbelief, like it’s just some sort of opinion one holds. But we just saw how the Bible uses the term faith as a verb describing an action, not just a static state of being or an opinion. Those who do not believe are actively not believing, and their lifestyles and their actions show it. To say someone is apistos does not just mean they are unbelieving in opinion, they are literally without faithful actions. I know that unbeliever is an acceptable use of the term in English, but for some reason it just gets under my skin and seems inaccurate. To me, those who demonstrate by their actions that they do not believe are not “unbelievers”, they are more accurately without faithful actions and are, by default (whether knowingly or unknowingly), obstinately living in disobedience to God.
So as we begin this journey on titles used to describe God’s people, I would strongly argue that the concept of faith must be included. While biblical faith is used in the verb sense throughout the Bible, I am of the opinion that to call someone a believer in the noun sense still adequately describes who they are by what they do. My definition of a biblical believer is someone whose actions and lifestyle express their faith in Yahweh as the one true God, and in Yeshua as his Messiah, or Anointed One. A non-believer’s actions demonstrate that they have no faith in Yahweh as the one true God, or in Yeshua as the Messiah, even if they claim to be associated with believers.
Christians
While the term Christian has become an acceptable description of one who follows Christ, or the Messiah, in our present day it is actually a term that has come to mean anyone who believes a specific orthodoxy about the person of Messiah and the message of the Bible as a whole. To be a Christian today, one must affirm that they agree with a framework of stated beliefs in order to qualify as a Christian. Most congregations today even have a public “statement of faith” which defines how they choose to align with the major Christian propositions, such as the trinity, virgin birth of Messiah, and perspectives on eschatology like the end times. This is understandable, for to belong to any type of specific group one must have points of agreement in order to be in fellowship.
However, in point of fact, there is a scholarly perspective that the term Christian as it is actually used in the Bible was not a statement of belief but it was initially used as a pejorative term against the believers in the first century.
The term itself is used only in three New Testament passages:
Acts 11:26 – The disciples were first called Christians at Antioch.
Acts 26:28 – Agrippa said to Paul, “Are you going to persuade me to become a Christian so quickly? “
1 Peter 4:14-16 – If you are ridiculed for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. Let none of you suffer as a murderer, a thief, an evildoer, or a meddler. But if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed but let him glorify God in having that name.
Now, most people who call themselves Christians today are not aware of the academic dispute about the actual phrase used in the Greek: was it christianoi meaning “anointed ones” or “those who follow the anointed” or was the term chrestianoi meaning “good ones” or “those who do good”? There is only one letter difference in the Greek between these two terms, and based on some convincing manuscript evidence (like the Codex Sinaiticus of the 4th century), some scholars think that chrestianoi is the original or preferred rendering. Someone who is a chrestianon is considered useful, pleasant, kind, or good. Believers living out the teachings of Messiah could certainly be classified as such, since they were instructed by Messiah not only to be kind to one another, but to extend that kindness even to their enemies. This would definitely be a distinctive characteristic worthy of some unique terminology.
The influential Biblical scholar of the last century, F.F. Bruce, wrote the following in his commentary on the book of Acts:
“Xrestus (“useful, kindly”) was a common slave-name in the Graeco-Roman world. It appears as a spelling variant for the unfamiliar Christus (Xristos). (In Greek the two words were pronounced alike.)” – F. F. Bruce, The Books of Acts, 368.
We can see how there was a close correlation between the two terms, and how the term chrestianoi could be applied to those who saw themselves as slaves to that which is good, because they would be known for always doing good to others. However, in a negative connotation, a chrestianon could also have been someone whom we might call today a “goody two-shoes”, or a “do-gooder”; as someone who is annoyingly righteous in what they say and do. And to be honest, this seems to me to be the way the term was employed in Scripture.
Notice, in the passages we just reviewed how if we substitute the negative connotation for the traditional rendering of Christian, it can apply equally as well as the positive.
Acts 11:26 – The disciples were first called Christians at Antioch.
It could just as easily be said that the disciples were first called “do-gooders” at Antioch. This would mean that this would have been the first place that believers were recognized collectively as a group with characteristics of doing good that were unique enough to have earned the name.
Acts 26:28 – Agrippa said to Paul, “Are you going to persuade me to become a Christian in so little time?”
Again, if we substitute the alternative, it could be that Agrippa said to Paul, “Are you going to persuade me to becomea ‘do-gooder’ in so little time?” Agrippa, in context, is sarcastically accusing Paul of trying to convert him to become something he is not. If this “do-gooder” tag was a name that had been applied to the movement many years before, Agrippa, as a controversial politician at best, could easily be seen as conveying his unlikely conversion to being someone who is considered “doing good”.
1 Peter 4:16 – But if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed but let him glorify God in having that name.
Peter here is contrasting the believers with those who are murderers, thieves, evildoers and those who defraud others (v. 15). “But if anyone suffers as a “doer of good”, let him not be ashamed but let him glorify God in having that name,” (v. 16). This rendering can be further substantiated by v. 19 which says, “So then, let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust themselves to a faithful Creator while doing what is good.” Peter could easily be saying the “doer of good” term was used as a way of ridiculing those who had chosen to follow the Messiah, and he is encouraging them to not be ashamed of those who would use this term in a derogatory fashion. It’s as if Peter is saying, “Don’t stop doing good just because people are making fun of you for doing so.”
To me, this does not seem to be such a difficult perspective to hold, as even today, many believers are ridiculed for having integrity and doing what is right when peer pressure or cultural dictates are otherwise. If we are truly living according to the teachings of Yeshua, then exhibiting forgiveness to others and extending compassion when it is not customary to do so can certainly be considered abrasive amidst a culture that primarily promotes self-benefit in every aspect. Some things regarding human nature don’t appear to have changed in the millennia since Messiah walked the earth, but then again, as followers of Messiah and slaves to that which is good, we are still called to be the light of the world (that which illuminates) and the salt of the earth (that which heals and preserves).
SUMMARY
Let’s summarize what we have looked at so far in this study on titles for God’s people. We saw that faith was the primary distinction of those who followed the Messiah, so using the term believers seems appropriate and right, as long as the actions of those who claim to be believers bear out their testimony. However, we noted that the term “unbeliever” seems unusual when the actual phrase used in Scripture means one who is faithless or without faithful actions, and is actively living in disobedience. We also saw how there could be both believers and faithless within the group of those considered as God’s people at any given time, based on how they demonstrated their faith (or lack of it) by their ongoing actions.
We then considered how, in today’s usage, a Christian is typically defined as one who holds to a certain set of orthodox beliefs about Christ and the Bible worldview as a whole. However, from the passages where the term may have been used in Scripture, we then saw how the term (whether meaning slave of Christ or one who does good) was likely used in a derogatory way to malign those who were known for excessive acts of kindness and charity amidst a corrupt society. As “slaves” of Christ, according to Peter, believers were to consider that term a badge of honor rather than the term of derision that it was.
Well, as we wrap up for today, I hope there are at least a couple of concepts and ideas to encourage you to meditate on and to study out further on your own. Next time, we’ll be looking at the terms “remnant and elect”, so be sure to come back and visit for more perspectives on these titles of God’s people. But remember, if you have thoughts or comments that you would like to explore further with me, feel free to email me at coreofthebible@gmail.com.
On this day of Yom Teruah, we are to remember the voice of God, and to not refuse him who spoke on that day.
Core of the Bible podcast #117 – The Biblical Calendar and Yom Teruah, the Day of Trumpets
Lately we have been reviewing some of the bigger key doctrines in the Bible. However, for today and the next several weeks, we will be returning to the biblical calendar as we are, at the recording of these podcasts, about to enter the fall season of the biblical year. But before we jump into the first of the fall holidays, Yom Teruah, I would like to quickly recap why I feel it is imperative for believers today to understand the biblical calendar and the feast days.
Most Christians today do not recognize or celebrate the biblical feast days. Yet, the biblical calendar is filled with symbolism of the Kingdom and God’s relationship with his people. I believe it is as we maintain recognition of these days that we can be reminded of God’s, and our, purpose. Just as the recurring physical seasons bring annual holidays and traditions to remembrance, these biblical days become recurring, practical, object lessons that point to the totality of God’s work among his people, and his presence in this world.
The annual biblical calendar contains seven special times known in Hebrew as moedim, meaning seasons or appointed times. I believe the annual biblical holidays are the true appointments with God, the seasonal moedim that he has established for all eternity. They are centered around three central “feasts” or “festival gatherings:” Unleavened Bread, Weeks/Shavuot, and Tabernacles/Sukkot. These occur in the first, third, and seventh months of the annual biblical calendar.
Deuteronomy 16:16 – “All your males are to appear three times a year before Yahweh your God in the place he chooses: at the Festival of Unleavened Bread (first month), the Festival of Weeks (third month), and the Festival of Tabernacles (seventh month).”
Interestingly, these festival-gatherings follow the agrarian timelines of the early barley harvest (first month), the early wheat harvest (third month) and the ingathering of all of the remaining crops (seventh month). All of these festivals surround God’s provision for his people. These three annual gathering seasons focus on seven appointed times which are described as memorials or re-enactments which I believe are to be used to keep God’s people focused on his will and purpose.
I also find it fascinating that God has placed these appointments on the annual calendar in a way that can still be recognized today, even though worldly calendars and methods of timekeeping have come and gone. I believe this is why they are described in the Bible the way they are, and why we are still able to keep those appointments with him.
How are we to keep these appointments? Certainly we are not to sacrifice animals as all sacrifice and temple service has been fulfilled in Messiah. However, on these special days we can still gather together as his people to review the symbolism of those days to bring greater awareness to our understanding of our relationship with God. Whether it is through deeper fellowship and community among his people, as well as renewing our total devotion to him and consummation in his service, we can become serious about our faith by living it out as object lessons that others can see and learn from, as well. After all, as you may know from previous episodes, I believe that God’s Torah or Word is eternal, and therefore has lasting influence on those who approach the God of the Bible as his people. These should be as much a part of our doctrinal understanding as any other major proposition such as the study of who God is or the Kingdom of God.
When viewed from this perspective, the biblical calendar becomes an annual reminder of God’s dealings with his people, Israel, from beginning to end. While the story isn’t necessarily about us directly, we find ourselves in that story when we come to know Yahweh and his son, Yeshua the Messiah.
So, with that basic understanding restated, we can now begin to take a look at our focus for the next several weeks: the fall festivals. In this time, the biblical calendar now starts its second “cycle”, the autumn cycle. By its very nature, the autumn cycle is the antithesis of the spring cycle. Spring themes are about new beginnings and ripening crops. Autumn themes are about endings and harvests. Just as the end of the harvest looks forward in hope to the beginning of the crop season in the next year, so the end of the autumn cycle looks forward in hope to the beginning of existence in the next reality.
YOM TERUAH – TRUMPETS
The first of the fall holidays is known as Yom Teruah, which literally means “day of horn-blasts/shouts”.
Numbers 29:1: “And in the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall have a holy convocation; you shall do no regular work: it is a day of blowing the trumpets unto you.” This is how the day has come to be known as the Feast or Festival of Trumpets.
But the phrase used here in the Hebrew is Yom Teruah, “the day of blasting noise”, not necessarily a word describing trumpets, per se. Teruah is a word that describes a severely loud noise which a trumpet or horn, or even someone shouting would make. Taking the word back to its root meaning, it means “to mar (especially by breaking)” or figuratively “to split the ears with sound”.
Now, this is a curious development. If we review the parallel description of this day in Leviticus 23, it is described there as “a sabbath-rest, a memorial of “blasting-noise’, a holy convocation.” The day is described in that place as zikronteruah, a memorial of an accompanying blast or horn-like noise.
Leviticus 23:23-25 Again Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the sons of Israel, saying, ‘In the seventh month on the first of the month you shall have a rest, a reminder by blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation. ‘You shall not do any laborious work, but you shall present an offering by fire to Yahweh.'”
Interestingly, today this simple instruction from Yahweh has been changed from its Scriptural meaning into what the Jews traditionally call Rosh Hashanah or New Years Day. On this day, there are the mournful blasts of shofarim, that is, trumpet-like horns made of actual animal horns, which are blown throughout the land to signal the coming of the new civil year.
If this is different than what was originally intended by Yahweh, then how did this come about? Well it seems that Jewish tradition of this day is based on a different passage of scripture which also has significant meaning but it’s different than that which is expressed as we have just seen in Numbers 29.
Leviticus 25:8-10: ““‘You shall count off seven Sabbaths of years, seven times seven years; and there shall be to you the days of seven Sabbaths of years, even forty-nine years. Then you shall sound the loud trumpet on the tenth day of the seventh month.On the Day of Atonement you shall sound the trumpet throughout all your land. You shall make the fiftieth year holy, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee to you; and each of you shall return to his own property, and each of you shall return to his family.”
This instruction specifically concerns the announcing of the year of jubilee which was to be done once every 50 years. If you have listened to the podcast on Shavuot or the Festival of Weeks, you may recall we discussed the symbolism of the Jubilee that was also represented numerically in the 50th day after Passover. However, because of this scriptural declaration of the Jubilee being counted during the fall festival, Jewish sages adopted the tradition of counting the civil calendar year from the first day of the seventh month in the fall while also simultaneously counting the religious calendar year beginning on the first day of the first month in the spring. As if their calendar based on both lunar and solar cycles wasn’t complicated enough already!
As can be seen in the Leviticus 25 passage, the horns were not supposed to be blown on the first day of the seventh month (which is when Rosh Hashanah is recognized today) but they were to be blown on the 10th day of the seventh month, which is the Day of Atonement. We will be looking at the significance of the Day of Atonement in the next episode, so be sure to listen in there if you would like to find out more about this pivotal day in the biblical calendar. So if Jews were to be consistent with what Scripture says, they should be proclaiming new year not on the first day of the seventh month but on the Day of Atonement which is the 10th day. And, they shouldn’t be doing it every year, only once every fifty years.
So, all of this is to say that the current traditional practice of Jews celebrating the beginning of the new year on the first day of the seventh month is tradition only and is not biblically accurate, although it is based in the writings of the Talmud. It is a strong and a unyielding tradition and has been celebrated among Rabbinic Judaism since about the second century A.D.
So if Yom Teruah or the day of trumpets is not about the beginning of the new year, what does it signify and why is it important for us to know this today?
Yom Teruah represents the themes of REMINDER and PROCLAMATION with loud noise. It’s a call to action: a preparation of repentance and a reminder to be obedient to the ways of God. This is to be a day which memorializes a loud blasting noise that could have potentially “split the ears with sound”. Is there such a day recorded for us in Israel’s history? When surveying the experiences of the ancient Israelites for an instance where there was a loud blast or trumpet-like sound of alarm that they should be reminded of, one experience shared by the entire nation stands out above all others: the presence of God at Sinai.
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Exodus 19:16-19 So it came about on the third day, when it was morning, that there were thunder and lightning flashes and a thick cloud upon the mountain and a very loud shofar sound, so that all the people who were in the camp trembled. And Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. Now Mount Sinai was all in smoke because Yahweh descended upon it in fire; and its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked violently. When the sound of the shofar grew louder and louder, Moses spoke and God answered him with thunder.
In verse 16, the sound heard that day is described as chazaq, meaning “mighty, sharp, loud”. In verse 19 it is said to have grown louder and louder, literally meaning it “traversed” the entire assembly, growing even mightier and louder as Yahweh descended in fiery smoke upon Mount Sinai.
In fact, this event is so pivotal in the history of Israel that even to this day this event at Sinai is the cornerstone of contemporaneous Jewish belief and identity. It is known throughout the world through the Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. This demonstrates how that sharp, blasting, penetrating sound like a mighty shofar from 3,500 years ago has changed all of history and continues to influence the majority of the world to this very day.
In the Exodus narrative, we learn that the presence of God on Sinai with this shofar-blast was the occasion in which he himself spoke the Ten Commandments (or Ten Words) to the entire nation at once. Because the force and sound of the words were so frightening (perhaps so loud as to have been considered “ear-splitting”), the Israelites begged Moses, as their representative, to go and speak with God himself, and then bring the information back to them so they could be spared having to listen to God speak directly to them. God then delivered to him the Ten Commandments, which became the cornerstone of the covenant that the people made with God in that day.
The Symbolism of Yom Teruah
The piercing, mighty shofar-like sound is the central symbol of this day. The sound at Sinai was not the sound of a man-made trumpet as we might think of the musical instrument today, but the plaintive cry of a type of sounding instrument made from the animal horn of a ram, known in Hebrew as a shofar.
Exodus 19:16 So it came about on the third day, when it was morning, that there were thunder and lightning flashes and a thick cloud upon the mountain and a very loud trumpet [shofar] sound, so that all the people who were in the camp trembled.
This shofar-sound was so penetrating, it shook the people to their core. In fact, the writer of the book of Hebrews in the New Testament refers to it as an event that even Moses himself feared.
Hebrews 12:18-21 For you have not come to a mountain that can be touched and to a blazing fire, and to darkness and gloom and whirlwind, and to the blast of a shofar and the sound of words which sound was such that those who heard begged that no further word be spoken to them. … And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, “I am full of fear and trembling.”
On this annual appointment day, the shofar is sounded as a reminder, a memorial, of the importance of God’s instruction (torah) which was summarized in the Ten Commandments. The trumpet represents God appearing on Sinai and announcing his standards of conduct for his covenant people. They were to be his physical kingdom representatives on earth, and this was the outline of their constitution. This Kingdom of God was about to become a physical reality on the earth, and they were expected to be obedient to his ways and to abandon the ways of Egypt and the surrounding nations. This horn-blast was a symbol of awe to remind them of God’s power and majesty, which was to have brought them to self-reflection and repentance.
In the same way, this day should be for us a memorial of that same event, as if we were standing at the foot of that fiery, quaking mountain, a shofar-like blast piercing through our bodies amidst the deafening peals of thunder at the awesome sound of God’s voice. Remember the voice of God; this is what the day is for. On that day he spoke his torah, his instruction, in the declaration of those ten phrases we have come to know as the Ten Commandments.
The spring festivals of the biblical calendar cover the events of the Exodus from Egypt to Sinai. It was there at Sinai that they received the charter of the Kingdom, setting them free from the tyranny of worldly slavery. The fall festivals pick up at that same event, not as a declaration of freedom, but as a reminder of God’s awesome power and majesty and as a call to repentance and renewal. The fall feasts then continue the Exodus story through discussion of atonement, and the miraculous provision of God through their wilderness journeys while they lived in tents, or sukkot. It culminates on the feast of the Eighth Day, signifying the arrival into the Promised Land, an eternal inheritance.
Hebrews 12:18-19, 22-25, 28-29 – For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest andthe sound of a shofar and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. … But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Yeshua, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven. … Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.
Application for today
On this day of Yom Teruah, we are to remember the voice of God, and to not refuse him who spoke on that day. We are to be mindful of those Ten Commandments, be repentant of our failings in those things, and remain in awe and reverence of the might and all-consuming power of God.
Just like the earthly Kingdom that was established that day on Sinai, the eternal kingdom that began with Yeshua is continuing to become an expanding reality within each generation. We are expected to be obedient to God’s ways and to abandon the ways of Egypt (i.e., the world) in order for the kingdom to grow. We are to be God’s kingdom representatives on earth, following the patterns and principles of his instruction (torah) as our constitution of faith and practice.
The whole biblical calendar is a testimony to the faithfulness of God in bringing his people to himself. It is a type and shadow of the work of Messiah in leading his faithful remnant out of worldly religion into the eternal Kingdom of God. This is a process which continues to this day, and is prophesied to continue until it fills the earth.
So, as we view this seasonal moed or appointed time of Yom Teruah, we can catch a glimpse of its renewed nature and purpose in the symbolism of its biblical parameters. That ear-splitting shofar-blast of the voice of God on Sinai declared the eternal nature of the Kingdom of God summarized in only ten phrases. Just as Yeshua taught, this was to be a Kingdom based on the structure of those Ten Commandments, as both a near and present reality, a realm where vigilance would be required of those who sought to participate. These believers would be set apart and holy, trusting God for all of their needs, just as Yeshua did, and they would operate with God’s characteristics of forgiveness and compassion, demonstrating that they are the children of God.
Well, I hope this introduction to the fall festivals of the biblical calendar brought you some concepts and ideas to meditate on and to study out further on your own. But remember, if you have thoughts or comments that you would like to explore further with me, feel free to email me at coreofthebible@gmail.com.
According to Yeshua, the biblical concept of being considered a child of Abraham is to demonstrate the same type of faith that Abraham exhibited when he simply believed what God said.
Core of the Bible podcast #113 – Children of Abraham, children of promise
In my last post, we reviewed the concept of covenants in the Bible, and I concluded by stating how believers today can participate in the promises that God made to Abraham when we simply come to God in faith, believing in his Messiah, Yeshua.
Many people today believe the children of Abraham to be a specific race or line of descendants that can trace their lineage back to him. This was believed in the time of Yeshua, as well. However, we will see that the biblical concept of being considered a child of Abraham is to demonstrate the same type of faith that Abraham exhibited when he simply believed what God said. To understand this, we will need to begin by exploring God’s dealings with Abraham himself.
Promises made to Abram before the covenants
While most people studying the Bible recognize that God made covenants with Abraham, they misunderstand or overlook how Abraham’s relationship with God came about. To begin with, God simply made seven promises to Abraham before any covenants were enacted.
Genesis 12:1-4 Now Yahweh said to Abram, “Go forth from your country, And from your relatives And from your father’s house, To the land which I will show you;
And I will make you a great nation,
And I will bless you,
And make your name great;
And so you shall be a blessing;
And I will bless those who bless you,
And the one who curses you I will curse.
And in you all the families of the earth [ha’adamah] will be blessed.”
So Abram went forth as Yahweh had spoken to him; and Lot went with him. Now Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.
At this point, no covenant was in place; God simply promised that all of these things would come about.
Next in the narrative, we find God reaffirming the promise to Abram that he would have numberless descendants, and now he adds the promise that they would also inherit the land of Canaan.
Genesis 13:14-17 Yahweh said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, “Now lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward; for all the land which you see, I will give it to you and to your descendants forever. I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth, so that if anyone can number the dust of the earth, then your descendants can also be numbered. Arise, walk about the land through its length and breadth; for I will give it to you.”
God then also promises that a very specific individual, one of his direct descendants, would be receiving the fulfillment of these promises that God was making to Abraham.
Genesis 15:1-4 After these things the word of Yahweh came to Abram in a vision, saying, “Do not fear, Abram, I am a shield to you; Your reward shall be very great.” Abram said, “O Lord Yahweh, what will You give me, since I am childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” And Abram said, “Since You have given no offspring to me, one born in my house is my heir.” Then behold, the word of Yahweh came to him, saying, “This man will not be your heir; but one who will come forth from your own body, he shall be your heir.“
Then, once again, God reaffirms his promise of many, numerous descendants that Abraham would have.
Genesis 15:5-6 And He took him outside and said, “Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” And He said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” Then he believed in Yahweh; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.
So far, no covenants have been enacted; these are all promises that God made with Abraham. At this point, the Bible tells us that Abraham simply believed in these promises of the one true God. This is the exhibition of faith that Abraham is primarily remembered for. Understanding this principle is key to how the apostle Paul would use this simple faithfulness of Abraham later on in his letters to illustrate faith in Messiah.
The first covenant with Abraham
As the narrative now moves from promises to covenants, the focus shifts from the spiritual aspect of God’s promises to the concrete realities of what, to a middle eastern person living in ancient times, would be the realization of the spiritual realities coming to pass. The first covenant God made with Abraham was to guarantee him and his descendants the physical land of Canaan in a way that he would recognize and understand its reality. God was simply using the covenant process as a way of guaranteeing to Abraham that it would come to pass. It is important to also note that this was an unconditional covenant; there was nothing Abraham needed to do to bring it about.
Genesis 15:7-21 And He said to him, “I am Yahweh who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess it.” He said, “O Lord Yahweh, how may I know that I will possess it?” So He said to him, “Bring Me a three year old heifer, and a three year old female goat, and a three year old ram, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” Then he brought all these to Him and cut them in two, and laid each half opposite the other; but he did not cut the birds. The birds of prey came down upon the carcasses, and Abram drove them away. Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, terror and great darkness fell upon him. God said to Abram, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years. But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many possessions. As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you will be buried at a good old age. Then in the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.” It came about when the sun had set, that it was very dark, and behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a flaming torch which passed between these pieces. On that day Yahweh made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I have given this land, From the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates: the Kenite and the Kenizzite and the Kadmonite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Rephaim and the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Girgashite and the Jebusite.”
The first covenant with Abraham was a guarantee of the promise that God had previously made to Abraham, granting him and his descendants the physical land of Canaan, from river to river. There was nothing Abraham needed to do for this to come about; God alone passed between the animal pieces in the vision Abraham saw. This was an illustration that it was assured God would accomplish this, and Abraham was not a participant to bring it about in any way.
God faithfully delivered on his covenant agreement to give them all of the land by the end of the book of Joshua:
Joshua 21:43-45 – “So the Lord gave Israel all the land which He had sworn to give to their fathers, and they possessed it and lived in it. And the Lord gave them rest on every side, according to all that He had sworn to their fathers, and no one of all their enemies stood before them; the Lord gave all their enemies into their hand. Not one of the good promises which the Lord had made to the house of Israel failed; all came to pass.”
The second covenant with Abraham
The second covenant God made with Abraham was a conditional covenant that would establish Yahweh as the God of Abraham’s descendants. However, it would require a practice for Abraham and any participants in the covenant; circumcision. Participants in this covenant would have to abide by the condition or they would not be included within the parameters of the covenant. This would be the distinguishing mark of the people that God was setting apart for his own purposes, to be their God and for them to be his people.
Genesis 17:1-14 Now when Abram was ninety-nine years old, Yahweh appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; Walk before Me, and be blameless. I will establish My covenant between Me and you, And I will multiply you exceedingly.” Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying, “As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you, And you will be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, But your name shall be Abraham; For I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make nations of you, and kings will come forth from you. I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you. I will give to you and to your descendants after you, the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.”
God said further to Abraham, “Now as for you, you shall keep My covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations. This is My covenant, which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you: every male among you shall be circumcised. And you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall be the sign of the covenant between Me and you. And every male among you who is eight days old shall be circumcised throughout your generations, a servant who is born in the house or who is bought with money from any foreigner, who is not of your descendants. A servant who is born in your house or who is bought with your money shall surely be circumcised; thus shall My covenant be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. But an uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant.”
Twenty-four years after the original promises made to Abraham, God asks Abraham and all of his physical descendants to participate in a covenant of circumcision. This was a fleshly covenant, to participate in a physical community with Yahweh as their God. The land had already been covenanted unconditionally; however, this conditional covenant would regulate the descendant community of Abraham as believers in Yahweh to distinguish them from the current possessors of Canaan.
It would also serve to confirm the original promise God made with him in Genesis 15 that “one who will come forth from your own body [that is, a physical descendant], he shall be your heir.” Thinking that God was primarily speaking of his immediate heirs, Abraham pleads for his son Ishmael to receive God’s favor.
Genesis 17:19-21 – But God said, “No. Your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will name him Isaac. I will confirm my covenant with him as a permanent covenant for his future offspring. As for Ishmael, I have heard you. I will certainly bless him; I will make him fruitful and will multiply him greatly. He will father twelve tribal leaders, and I will make him into a great nation. But I will confirm my covenant with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you at this time next year.”
Isaac, the miraculous child through Abraham’s wife Sarah, a child of promise, would be the immediate heir that Abraham was looking for. However, the covenantal practice of ongoing circumcisions in the community would ensure that a future descendant, another child of promise who would be the ultimate recipient of the spiritual promises made previously to Abraham, would be able to be recognized as coming from Abraham’s line.
Since we read in the book of Joshua how the promise to Abraham that his descendants would receive the land was fulfilled, it then makes sense the Bible would also record the fulfilled promise of how a physical descendant beyond the immediate family of Abraham would become his ultimate spiritual heir, the heir of the promises that were originally made to Abraham.
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Yeshua as the seed of Abraham
Now we fast-forward almost two thousand years to the time of Yeshua. Abraham’s descendants, through Isaac and then Jacob and his twelve sons, have been faithfully circumcising their male infants and keeping genealogical records throughout their history. There were a few exceptions, such as Israel’s time in the wilderness and some of their captivity, but those were accounted for and rectified upon their return to their land. Based on these records and the faithful practice of circumcision within the community, we know, therefore, that Yeshua was a fleshly descendant of Abraham from these genealogies as recorded in the accounts of Matthew and Luke.
Matthew 1:1 The record of the genealogy of Yeshua the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham:
Luke 3:23, 34 When He began His ministry, Yeshua Himself was about thirty years of age, being, as was supposed, the son of Joseph, the son of Eli, … the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham…
This lineage is critical to recognizing Yeshua as the rightful heir of the promise that was made to Abraham.
Genesis 15:2-4 Abram said, “O Lord Yahweh, what will You give me, since I am childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” And Abram said, “Since You have given no offspring to me, one born in my house is my heir.” Then behold, the word of Yahweh came to him, saying, “This man will not be your heir; but one who will come forth from your own body, he shall be your heir.”
The apostle Paul confirms that this promise of God to Abraham, while immediately fulfilled through Isaac, was ultimately fulfilled in Messiah, the descendant or seed of Abraham.
Galatians 3:16 – Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as referring to many, but rather to one, “And to your seed,” that is, Messiah.
Yeshua defines who the true children of Abraham are
As the genealogical and covenantal end-stop of the promise made to Abraham, Yeshua is fully qualified to define who the true children of Abraham are. Several times in his teachings, Yeshua equates being a son or daughter of Abraham with being a person of faith in the working of God, NOT just a product of a physical lineage.
Luke 19:1-10 [Yeshua] entered Jericho and was passing through. And there was a man called by the name of Zaccheus; he was a chief tax collector and he was rich. Zaccheus was trying to see who Yeshua was, and was unable because of the crowd, for he was small in stature. So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree in order to see Him, for He was about to pass through that way. When Yeshua came to the place, He looked up and said to him, “Zaccheus, hurry and come down, for today I must stay at your house.” And he hurried and came down and received Him gladly. When they saw it, they all began to grumble, saying, “He has gone to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.” Zaccheus stopped and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, half of my possessions I will give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will give back four times as much.” And Yeshua said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he, too, is a son of Abraham. “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”
Zaccheus may have been a natural descendant of Abraham, but the context demonstrates Yeshua was speaking about his faith which resulted in action. This is what truly qualified him as a son of Abraham. When Yeshua used this phrase, as shown above, it was in the context of someone exhibiting great faith, especially faith in him as the Messiah.
Conversely, when confronted by the Jewish leaders who were clearly physical descendants of Abraham and had the genealogies to prove it, Yeshua contradicts their fleshly ideas that just because of their physical lineage they were entitled to the blessings of Abraham.
John 8:39-40, 47 – They [the Jewish leaders] answered and said to Him, “Abraham is our father.” Yeshua said to them, “If you are Abraham’s children, do the deeds of Abraham. But as it is, you are seeking to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God; this Abraham did not do. … “He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not hear them, because you are not of God.”
This shows how the “works of Abraham” are once again equated with faith in Messiah. Since the Jewish leaders did not believe, Yeshua did not consider them in the category of children of Abraham, even though they were Abraham’s physical descendants.
In a similar style, John the baptizer had held nothing back when it came to confronting the religious leaders as he was paving the way for the work of Messiah to follow. Concerning Abraham’s fleshly lineage, he said the following:
Matthew 3:7-9 But when he [John] saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? “Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance; and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father’; for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham.”
Once again, the Jewish leaders were not believing in the work that God was doing at that time in preparing people for the coming Messiah. So John dramatically states that God can create a child of Abraham out of anything, even stones!
Yeshua expands the term to non-Israelites
Matthew 8:5-12 And when Yeshua entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, imploring Him, and saying, “Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, fearfully tormented.” Yeshua said to him, “I will come and heal him.” But the centurion said, “Lord, I am not worthy for You to come under my roof, but just say the word, and my servant will be healed. “For I also am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to this one, ‘Go!’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come!’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this!’ and he does it.” Now when Yeshua heard this, He marveled and said to those who were following, “Truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith with anyone in Israel. “I say to you that many will come from east and west, and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; but the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
This passage shows that a centurion, a non-Israelite who expressed faith in Yeshua, was qualified by him to be in the kingdom of God with Abraham. This was due to his faith in the Messiah. However, the “sons of the kingdom,” those Israelites in the physical descendant lineage of Abraham, but not of the faith of Abraham, would be cast out.
From these passages, I believe both John the baptizer and Yeshua defined a child of Abraham, or someone who would be blessed along with Abraham, as someone who exhibited faith in God, just like Abraham did.
The apostle Paul continues the teaching of John and Yeshua
Paul also confirms this is an appropriate view of the term when he writes:
Galatians 3:6-9 Even so Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. Therefore, be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham. The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the [nations] by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “All the nations will be blessed in you.” So then those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham, the believer.
Galatians 3:26-29 For you are all sons of God through faith in Messiah Yeshua. For all of you who were baptized into Messiah have clothed yourselves with Messiah. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Messiah Yeshua. And if you belong to Messiah, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise.
Paul equates the promise that was made to Abraham as being effective for all who exhibit faith in Messiah, just as Abraham exhibited faith in Yahweh.
Romans 4:13-14, 16 For the promise to Abraham or to his descendants that he would be heir of the world was not through the Law, but through the righteousness of faith. For if those who are of the Law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise is nullified; … For this reason it is by faith, in order that it may be in accordance with grace, so that the promise will be guaranteed to all the descendants, not only to those who are of the Law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all…
We have to remember that Abraham had two prominent sons: Ishmael (born through a slave woman, Hagar) and Isaac (born miraculously through Sara). Isaac was the child of promise through whom God chose to continue the preferred line of Abraham’s descendants.
Genesis 21:12 – But God said to Abraham, “Do not be distressed because of the lad and your maid; whatever Sarah tells you, listen to her, for through Isaac your descendants shall be named.
Isaac then had two twin sons: Jacob and Esau. Jacob gained the name Israel (Genesis 32:28) and was the child through whom God chose to continue Abraham’s fleshly lineage all the way down to his Messiah, almost two thousand years later. So, while both Isaac and Jacob were “children” (that is, descendants) of Abraham, one was the miraculous child of promise chosen by God, and the other was the physical descendant chosen by God.
The apostle Paul capitalizes on this distinction by quoting that Genesis passage in his argument as to why those who believe in Messiah are counted above the physical descendants of Abraham:
Romans 9:6-8 – Now it is not as though the word of God has failed, because not all who are descended from Israel [Jacob] are Israel. Neither is it the case that all of Abraham’s children are his descendants. On the contrary, [the Bible says,] “your offspring will be traced through Isaac.” That is, it is not the children by physical descent who are God’s children, but the children of the promise are considered to be the offspring.
Therefore, while the physical covenants belonged to the physical descendants, the spiritual promises and blessings belong to the miraculous descendants: those who exhibit faith in the promises of God, just like Abraham did. Isaac was the miraculous result of Abraham’s faith, therefore, in like fashion, those who exhibit faith in God receive a miraculous adoption into Abraham’s line of spiritual descendants through Isaac. It can be said that Jews were physically Abraham’s descendants through Jacob, but anyone believing in the Messiah became Abraham’s spiritual descendants through Isaac.
Using the analogy of the long history of Israel as a cultivated olive tree, the apostle Paul wrote about how it was not just the connection to the physical tree that mattered, but belief in the Messiah that allowed the branches to prosper.
Romans 11:17, 24 – Now if some of the branches were broken off, and you, though a wild olive branch, were grafted in among them and have come to share in the root and richness of the cultivated olive tree, … For if you were cut off from your native wild olive tree and against nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these – the natural branches – be grafted into their own olive tree?
According to the Bible, it is the natural thing for Jews to believe in their own Messiah, and they can flourish when they do so. But because of their unbelief, God had chosen to break off some of the natural branches and miraculously graft in believers from among the nations into that same olive tree. But all of the remaining branches stand by faith in Messiah, so technically, all of the remaining branches are branches of promise, according to faith.
For those of us who believe in Yeshua today, we are counted as Abraham’s children (that is, we are considered as descended from the patriarchal olive tree root that Paul mentions) but only because of our faith in God by believing in his Messiah. This is the same type of faith that Abraham exhibited, and we are considered heirs only because we believe in the promised seed of Abraham, the Messiah. We are heirs according to the promise of God to Abraham, NOT by seeking God’s favor through fleshly rule-following (like the Jews of Yeshua’s day), NOT directly by covenant (since God’s New Covenant was made with Israel and Judah), and NOT by genealogy (since we are not direct descendants of Abraham), but strictly by faith in God’s promise, just like Abraham.
As I mentioned in our last study, in the book of Hebrews, quoting from Jeremiah, it is clear that the new covenant was not about starting a new religion with a new group of people, but it was about fulfilling the promises made to Abraham on behalf of Israel and Judah, and it described where God’s eternal law or torah was to be placed.
Heb 8:8-10 For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith Yahweh, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith Yahweh. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith Yahweh; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people…
While the law originally written on stone was placed inside the ark of the covenant within the holiest of places in the tabernacle and then the temple, the new covenant provided for the law to be written on the heart so it could be lived out in practice through his eternal temple, the body of Messiah believers in each generation.
1 Corinthians 3:16 – Don’t you yourselves know that you [plurally] are God’s temple and that the Spirit of God lives in you?
This new covenant was made specifically with and for Judah and Israel, yet it is available to all who would believe in Abraham’s descendant, the Messiah. Though the covenant was not made with believers in this generation directly, we have the privilege of participating in it since we, by faith, are considered to be IN Messiah who was the goal and end of the promise made to Abraham.
Galatians 3:16, 29 Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as referring to many, but rather to one, “And to your seed,” that is, Messiah … for you are all one in Messiah Yeshua. And if you belong to Messiah, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise.
The physical covenants and genealogies were for physical blessings for Abraham’s fleshly descendants through Jacob. They were necessary and proper until the fulfillment of the promises and covenants in Messiah. From Yeshua’s time on, genealogies would no longer be necessary, since they had served their purpose of identifying Abraham’s ultimate “seed,” Messiah. Physical covenants related to blessings of the land would also no longer be necessary, as the children of Abraham would be defined by their simple faith in God’s Messiah. And this would not be to gain or prosper in a specific, physical land but to live in an eternal, universal Kingdom covering the entire earth.
However, just because the covenants were fulfilled in Messiah, it does not mean that the instruction of God contained within the covenant language has been completely abandoned. It has not been abolished, but fulfilled! Even better, it is my belief that the torah instruction of God has been simplified and elevated into the moral and spiritual principles taught by Yeshua which are summarized in the Sermon on the Mount. These include primarily the principles of the Kingdom (a Kingdom which has been forever established by God upon the Ten Commandments), integrity, vigilance, holiness, trust, forgiveness, and compassion. These are the core Bible principles allowing believers to truly love God and to love others from the heart which is the fulfillment of having the law or torah of the Kingdom placed within the heart. The new covenant is genuinely fulfilled in us when we abide by these principles, and the Kingdom of God then has potential to continue to expand further in each generation!
Those who exhibit this faith in God by believing in his Messiah, just like Abraham’s elementary faith, will be counted within the idiomatic expression of believers spanning many ages, known collectively as “children of Abraham.” These are the ones whom, like Yeshua taught, will “come from east and west, and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven,” (Matthew 8:11).
Well, I hope this deeper dive into the promises made with Abraham brought you some concepts and ideas to meditate on and to study out further on your own. But remember, if you have thoughts or comments that you would like to explore further with me, feel free to email me at coreofthebible@gmail.com.
How Yeshua became the way to God for anyone who was not part of covenantal Israel and Judah.
Core of the Bible podcast #112 – Covenants and Promises
Today, I wanted to take a closer look at the concept of covenants, and how covenants are represented throughout Scripture. With an understanding of how covenants worked in the ancient world, we can gain a better perspective on the application of these covenantal principles today.
So, to begin with, in its simplest form, a covenant can be defined as an agreement between parties. In the Bible, covenants are noted as being instituted between individuals, heads of tribes, countries, and by and with God.
In these ancient covenant practices, various symbols and practices were involved to mark the agreements. Typically, an animal was cut in half, and both parties to the agreement would walk between the severed pieces. This was a way of saying, “May what has been done to this animal be done to me if I break my agreement with you.” This is why it was called “cutting” a covenant.
There were also specific benefits offered by keeping a covenant, and consequences to breaking a covenant. These would have been outlined at the time of the agreement. Today, a close equivalent to a covenant would be something like a contract which outlines an agreement with penalties or benefits between individuals or corporate entities. The phrase “to cut a contract” stems from the covenant roots.
The Bible records that there were tokens or symbols to memorialize these agreements. For example, in the covenant with Noah, God promised to never flood the entire land again. The symbol for remembrance of God’s covenant with Noah and all living flesh was a rainbow. Other covenantal tokens between men might include a pillar of stones, a symbolic feast, an exchange of animals, a well of water, or a symbolic altar.
Genesis 31:43-46 – Then Laban replied to Jacob, … “So now come, let us make a covenant, you and I, and let it be a witness between you and me.” Then Jacob took a stone and set it up as a pillar. Jacob said to his kinsmen, “Gather stones.” So they took stones and made a heap, and they ate there by the heap.
Genesis 26:26-30 Then Abimelech came to him from Gerar with his adviser Ahuzzath and Phicol the commander of his army. Isaac said to them, “Why have you come to me, since you hate me and have sent me away from you?” They said, “We see plainly that Yahweh has been with you; so we said, ‘Let there now be an oath between us, even between you and us, and let us make a covenant with you, that you will do us no harm, just as we have not touched you and have done to you nothing but good and have sent you away in peace. You are now the blessed of Yahweh.'” Then he made them a feast, and they ate and drank.
God’s covenant with Abraham – Approximately 2000 BC
Abraham lived roughly four thousand years ago (from today) in the land of Ur, which is the region of Babylon. God’s covenant with Abraham was to be the start of a set-apart tribal community that would eventually become the physical nation of Israel.
Genesis 15:7-18 And He said to him, “I am Yahweh who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess it.” He said, “O Lord GOD, how may I know that I will possess it?” So He said to him, “Bring Me a three year old heifer, and a three year old female goat, and a three year old ram, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” Then he brought all these to Him and cut them in two, and laid each half opposite the other; but he did not cut the birds. The birds of prey came down upon the carcasses, and Abram drove them away.
Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, terror and great darkness fell upon him. God said to Abram, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years. But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many possessions. As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you will be buried at a good old age. Then in the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.”
It came about when the sun had set, that it was very dark, and behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a flaming torch which passed between these pieces. On that day Yahweh made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I have given this land, From the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates…”
His name was originally Abram. Since he was to become the father of many nations, God changed his name to Abraham.
Genesis 17:4-6 – “As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you, And you will be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, But your name shall be Abraham; For I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make nations of you, and kings will come forth from you.
Abraham’s son was Isaac; Isaac’s son was Jacob; Jacob’s twelve sons became the heads of the twelve tribes of Israel (Israel was another name for Jacob). This is how the nation as a whole got its name. While Abraham’s son Ishmael also became the start of other tribes and tribal leaders (confirming that Abraham became the father of a multitude of nations), the Bible story primarily follows the descendants of Jacob, which became the nation of Israel, just as God had covenanted with Abraham.
Mosaic covenant – Approximately 1500 BC
Hundreds of years after Abraham, his physical descendants, the children of Israel, became enslaved in Egypt (as God had foretold). He raised up Moses to lead them out of their captivity and to become their own nation. This is described in the story of the Exodus and Passover.
Once out in the desert, the newly formed nation needed rules for governing the masses. God provided this direction through the covenant at Mt. Sinai, which was based on the Ten Commandments.
Deuteronomy 4:12-13 “Then Yahweh spoke to you from the midst of the fire; you heard the sound of words, but you saw no form–only a voice. So He declared to you His covenant which He commanded you to perform, that is, the Ten Commandments; and He wrote them on two tablets of stone.”
This covenant with the children of Israel through Moses was still based on the covenant made with Abraham but also added the Ten Commandments and further instruction which was to guide them in establishing a representative Kingdom of God. This Torah, or instruction, set the people of Israel apart from all the people of the world.
This was a national covenant agreement that contained both blessings and curses. Whenever the people of Israel collectively breached the covenant and the law, they would suffer the consequences according to the covenant agreement.
Deuteronomy 28:1, 15 “Now it shall be, if you diligently obey Yahweh your God, being careful to do all His commandments which I command you today, Yahweh your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. … “But it shall come about, if you do not obey Yahweh your God, to observe to do all His commandments and His statutes with which I charge you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you…”
The worst of the curses was captivity and loss of the covenantal land which in later years led to dispersions among the nations of the world.
Deuteronomy 28:58, 64-65 “If you are not careful to observe all the words of this law which are written in this book, to fear this honored and awesome name, Yahweh your God, … Yahweh will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth; and there you shall serve other gods, wood and stone, which you or your fathers have not known. Among those nations you shall find no rest, and there will be no resting place for the sole of your foot; but there Yahweh will give you a trembling heart, failing of eyes, and despair of soul.
Covenant with David – Approximately 1000 BC
As the nation of Israel grew, God provided an ideal example of kingship in David. The surrounding nations became subject to David’s rule and at that time the nation rose to all that had been prophesied before. This physical, national ideal became the type and foreshadowing of the spiritual kingdom which was to be realized a millennium later through the direct descendant of King David, Yeshua.
Psalm 89:3-4 – “I have made a covenant with My chosen; I have sworn to David My servant, I will establish your seed forever And build up your throne to all generations.”
Unfortunately, it didn’t even take one full generation for Israel to begin to fall away from their faithfulness and to begin to break this covenant. Toward the end of the reign of David’s son, Solomon, he began to honor foreign gods. When Solomon died, his two sons began rival kingdoms, and the nation entered a period of time of civil war and unrest. The two kingdoms became referenced by separate names. The northern kingdom became “Israel” and the southern kingdom became “Judah.”
Over the next several hundred years, king after king in both kingdoms defied the covenant. A few kings were faithful and would attempt to do what’s right and re-institute the ways of God; however, their successors would lapse back into idolatry and disobedience. The overall will of the people was rebelliousness in their heart, which is why they struggled generation after generation.
Ultimately, the curses and penalties of the covenant agreement could no longer be forestalled, and the entire nation was removed from the covenantal land and scattered among the surrounding nations, just as God (through Moses) said he would do if they were to become unfaithful. The northern kingdom, Israel, was captured by Assyria in 722 BC. The southern kingdom, Judah, was captured by Babylon in 586 BC.
Jeremiah 3:21; 4:1-2 A voice is heard on the bare heights, The weeping and the supplications of the sons of Israel; Because they have perverted their way, They have forgotten Yahweh their God…”If you will return, O Israel,” declares Yahweh, “then you should return to Me. And if you will put away your detested things from My presence, And will not waver, And you will swear, ‘As Yahweh lives,’ In truth, in justice and in righteousness; Then the nations will bless themselves in Him, And in Him they will glory.”
Even throughout their disobedient ways, God in his love and remembrance of his promises and covenant with Abraham declared that they could still be the blessing to the rest of the nations if they would only return to him. Since the people continually turned from God in their hearts, God promised that he would make a new covenant with the children of Israel and Judah where he would put his law in their hearts and not on stones like the Ten Commandments. When the law is in the heart the person does not forget the ways of God and then is effective in keeping them.
Jeremiah 31:31-33 – “Behold, days are coming,” declares Yahweh, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares Yahweh. “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares Yahweh, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
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Yeshua fulfilled the previous covenants and promises – Approximately 30 AD
Yeshua of Nazareth was sent by God to fulfill the words of all of the previous covenants and the promises that God made with Abraham.
By Yeshua proclaiming that he was speaking the word of God, and by the accompanying signs done through him, the covenant God made with Israel when they were led by Moses was fulfilled.
Promise:
Deuteronomy 18:18-19 I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him.
Fulfillment:
John 8:42 Yeshua said to them [the Jews], “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I have not even come on My own initiative, but He sent Me.
John 12:49 “For I did not speak on My own initiative, but the Father Himself who sent Me has given Me a commandment as to what to say and what to speak.
By Yeshua coming from the line of David, the covenant that God made with David was fulfilled.
Promise:
Psalms 132:11 Yahweh has sworn in truth unto David; he will not turn from it; “Of the fruit of your body will I set upon your throne.”
Fulfillment:
Matthew 1:1 The record of the genealogy of Yeshua the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham:
Matthew 21:9 The crowds going ahead of Him [Yeshua], and those who followed, were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David; Blessed is he who comes in the name of Yahweh; Hosanna in the highest!”
More importantly for us today, since God’s covenant with Abraham began the nation of Israel, Yeshua not only fulfilled God’s covenants with the nation through David and Moses, but also the promises made to Abraham before any covenants were made, even the covenant with Abraham. Since Yeshua was a true descendant of Abraham, these promises to Abraham were also fulfilled in Yeshua:
Promise:
Genesis 12:2-3 And I will make you a great nation, And I will bless you, And make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing; And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”
Fulfillment:
Galatians 3:8-9 The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the nations by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “All the nations will be blessed in you.” So then those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham, the believer.
Promise:
Genesis 15:2-5 Abram said, “O Lord GOD, what will You give me, since I am childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” And Abram said, “Since You have given no offspring to me, one born in my house is my heir.” Then behold, the word of Yahweh came to him, saying, “This man will not be your heir; but one who will come forth from your own body, he shall be your heir.” And He took him outside and said, “Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” And He said to him, “So shall your descendants be.”
Fulfillment:
Matthew 1:1 The record of the genealogy of Yeshua the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham:
Galatians 3:16 Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as referring to many, but rather to one, “And to your seed,” that is, Messiah.
The New Covenant was made with Israel and Judah
Modern Christianity teaches that the new covenant through Messiah was made with the whole world. However, the prophecy of Jeremiah states exactly who the new covenant would be for:
Jeremiah 31:31 “Behold, days are coming,” declares Yahweh, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah…
The new covenant was for the house of Israel (the northern ten tribes) so that they could return to him from the nations among which they had been scattered, after they were disobedient to the covenant God had enacted through Moses. The New Testament epistles demonstrate that they did return to him; the assemblies of Messiah were made up of those from among the nations where the disciples went and preached to the scattered Israelites, the “lost sheep” of Israel.
The new covenant was also for the house of Judah (or the southern tribes), so they could have the law placed within their hearts, and no longer be subject to the hypocritical traditions of men. On many occasions, Yeshua scolded them for their hypocrisy:
Mark 7:5-8 The Pharisees and the scribes asked Him, “Why do Your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with impure hands?” And He [Yeshua] said to them, “Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far away from me. But in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.’ Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men.”
In the book of Hebrews, quoting from Jeremiah, it is clear that the new covenant was not about starting a new religion with a new group of people, but it was about fulfilling the promises made to Abraham on behalf of Israel and Judah, and it described where God’s eternal law or torah was to be placed.
Heb 8:8-10 For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith Yahweh, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith Yahweh. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith Yahweh; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people…
The issue was not that the Law or the instruction of God was bad, but it was the people’s failure to keep it because they weren’t keeping it in their heart. They were only treating it as an outward set of rules and regulations and were adding more and more rules on top of it. Therefore, through the new covenant, God was able to place his instruction directly into the hearts of believers through his Spirit. This was to help the believer to walk in the true spirit of God’s instruction, not just the letter of rules, and therefore to actually remain faithful to his Word.
2 Corinthians 3:5-6 Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
The spirit of God’s Word, the true intent of him providing it in the first place, could now begin to bear fruit by spreading life among the people through this new covenant of the Spirit.
Now, the really good news (for us) is, because Yeshua also fulfilled the pre-covenant promises that were made to Abraham, Yeshua then also became the way to God for anyone who was not part of covenantal Israel and Judah. In this way, anyone from anywhere who expressed faith in Yeshua as being sent by God, whether Jew or non-Jew, could now approach the God of Creation through simple faith, just like Abraham. This is why the early congregations were made up of both Jews and those from among the nations where the Israelites had been scattered.
Galatians 3:26-28 For you are all sons of God through faith in Messiah Yeshua. For all of you who were baptized into Messiah have clothed yourselves with Messiah. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Messiah Yeshua.
Colossians 3:10-11 and you have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him– a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Messiah is all, and in all.
Because the promises to Abraham were made prior to any covenants, the fulfilled promises can be accepted and applied by non-covenantal believers, like all of us today who are not of Jewish or Hebraic descent. This is why the gospel of the Kingdom is considered good news! In this way, through Yeshua, God has been able to draw all men to himself, Jews and non-Jews, and to re-establish the New Creation of his Kingdom with all people for all eternity.
Well, I hope this overview of the covenants and promises of the Bible brought you some concepts and ideas to meditate on and to study out further on your own. Because the good news of this Kingdom has such far-reaching implications, I would like to take some time to further explore our relationship with the promise of Abraham in more detail. So, next time, we will review this concept of the faith of Abraham to demonstrate how believers even today can be considered “children of Abraham.”
Remember, if you have thoughts or comments that you would like to explore further with me, feel free to email me at coreofthebible@gmail.com.
Our objective is to overcome the stereotypes of Christianity to share the message of righteousness in the Kingdom of God.
Our objective is to overcome the stereotypes of Christianity to share the message of righteousness in the Kingdom of God.
It has been said that in order to trust someone, you have to know them. If this is true, then the same standard holds true for Yahweh and his Messiah. How can anyone trust God if they don’t know about him and what he has done throughout history? How can anyone trust in Messiah Yeshua if they don’t know who he is or what a Messiah is?
Romans 10:14-15 – But how are men to call upon him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without a preacher? And how will they preach, if they may not be sent? According as it has been written: “How beautiful the feet of those proclaiming good tidings of peace, of those proclaiming good tidings of the good things!”
As the apostle Paul suggests here with the Roman congregation, the preaching of good news is a beautiful thing.
Isaiah 52:6-7 – Therefore my people shall know my name; therefore in that day they shall know that it is I who speak; here am I. How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good tidings, who publishes peace, who brings good tidings of good, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”
While Paul’s argument is to substantiate how God had revealed himself and his Messiah to his people, the Jews, he mourns how not all of them in his day had received it. Those of the nations were accepting the message of the Kingdom while Israel would not.
Romans 10:20-21 – Then Isaiah is so bold as to say, “I have been found by those who did not seek me; I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me.” But of Israel he says, “All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.”
Based on this type of scriptural logic, I am of the mind that most people today who have rejected the Bible, God, and Yeshua, is because they haven’t actually heard the true message. Like the Jews of old, I believe most people are rejecting the Bible and its message of God’s Kingdom because of their own understanding of a caricaturized version of the good news.
In my view, the mainstream Christian message in America today is one of contradiction and conservative politics. On the one hand, Christians say God loves everyone. On the other, they say that God is about to destroy the world because of everyone’s sinfulness. Political rallies are promoted with the same zeal, if not more, than that for the message of the Kingdom itself. There are tens of thousands of denominations due to differences many times over minor points of emphasis, and sometimes outright error. It’s no wonder younger people are leaving denominations in droves because they are seeing the hypocrisy, confusion, and hopelessness of it all.
But, put in its proper context and perspective, the Bible message is one of good news! God, as the Creator of all, provided an eternal object lesson through a people he chose to represent him in the ancient Hebrew kingdom of Israel. They were the seed-bed for the Messiah, the anointed one through whom God established his eternal spiritual Kingdom on the earth two thousand years ago. God invited all people to be at peace with him through faith in his Messiah. God had installed Yeshua as the reigning monarch of his Kingdom in heaven until Yeshua turned everything over to the Father at the culmination of that age.
Since that time, God’s Kingdom has been expanding amidst every new generation as hearts are turned to him. Righteousness and truth live among these people of Zion, the spiritual Kingdom of God. God does want all people to know him, and to come to him in faith through his anointed one, his Messiah. Through the principles of the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount, he has provided a guide for righteous and holy living that honors him and respects others. As prophesied by Daniel and Yeshua, at some point this Kingdom will grow to fill the earth. People will truly know the God of the Bible, not a caricaturized, politicized, and divided version of him.
In the meantime, it remains our objective to be the bearers of this news to those who have not heard, or who have only heard the corrupted version of the story. It is time for the light of God to shine out from the ruined shambles of tradition and orthodoxy. As we seek to deepen our own understanding and faithfulness, we should likewise pray for the ability to make him known to others, that we may become like the messenger of Isaiah proclaiming to all who are willing to hear, “Your God reigns.”
If you enjoy these daily articles, be sure to visit the growing archive of the Core of the Bible podcast. Each week we take a more in-depth look at one of the various topics presented in the daily blog. You can view the podcast archive on our Podcast Page, at Core of the Bible on Simplecast, or your favorite podcast streaming service.
Becoming doctrinally sound is an ongoing task for every believer.
Matthew 7:7-8 – ““Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.”
In this famous portion of the sermon on the mount, Yeshua encourages believers to be vigilant in all things. Each of the action words relating to ask, seek, and knock, are all in the present imperative which implies an ongoing action. This means that believers are to keep asking, keep seeking, and keep knocking in order to receive those things that one may be searching for.
This may sound like a relatively simple encouragement for believers to apply in their lives, but it becomes even more prominent when it comes to us understanding our beliefs and the truths related to us in the Bible.
The topic of theology is one that was recently brought to the forefront of my attention by listening to a sermon about this very thing. The pastor was decrying the fact that statistically most Christians today have not read the entire Bible through even once. Many Christians rarely read their Bibles, yet are very vocal about their biblical opinions, even if their theology is not very sound.
While most believers may not think about theology as being something necessary for them, it becomes apparent that the more one reads the Bible, the believer begins to build up a personal theology on how all of the various pieces of information in the Bible fit together. This is a necessary and vital function of our continual growth. This is one reason that faithful believers who are in the word on a regular basis may change their opinions over time as they study and learn more about the text and the culture.
The basic areas of theology that one encounters when reading the Bible include some of the following main ideas:
Theology: The study of the nature of God.
Christology: The study of the nature of Messiah.
Soteriology: The study of The doctrine of salvation.
Ecclesiology: The study of the doctrine of the church, or Ekklesia.
Eschatology: The study of last things.
As one reads the Bible on a regular basis, these various doctrinal concepts continue to present themselves and force the believer to make decisions about what they actually believe about these various areas. This is critical to believers having a well-rounded faith, as illustrated by the directive of the apostle Paul to Timothy and to the congregation at Colosse:
2 Timothy 2:15 – “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved by him, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly explaining the word of truth.”
Colossians 4:6 – “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer everyone.”
By being vigilant in our continual and ongoing study of God‘s word, we provide God the opportunity to continue to mold and shape us according to the truths that are found there. We need to keep asking, keep seeking, and keep knocking when it comes to understanding the finer points of our beliefs about eternal things. This allows us to be more open and willing to share with those around us who may have legitimate questions about the Bible.
This is who we are called to be, not just pastors and leaders, but all believers should grow in the grace and understanding provided by the spirit of God for our lives; this is to his glory and the growth of the kingdom.
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If you enjoy these daily blog posts, be sure to visit the growing archive of the Core of the Bible podcast. Each week we take a more in-depth look at one of the various topics presented in the daily blog. You can view the podcast archive on our Podcast Page, at Core of the Bible on Simplecast, or your favorite podcast streaming service.
Questions or comments? Feel free to email me directly at coreofthebible@gmail.com.
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