Monday, October 28, 2013

60. ALIVE FOREVERMORE

60. ALIVE FOREVERMORE


1:18. I [am] he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.”

As we have seen, Jesus Christ is the Ever-Living One. He is now in heaven, interceding for His saints, Hebrews 7:25.  He was in the beginning with God and has everlasting life. He therefore, qualifies for the inheritance of everlasting promises for He can reign for ever and ever, Luke 1:33; 54-55; Revelation 11:15; 22:5. No other man nor nation in the flesh can qualify for the everlasting promises.

A study of the words for ever and evermore will reveal that they do not always indicate endless or eternal time. For example, Mark 13:31; Revelation 20:11, 2 Peter 3:7, 10-12 indicate that the earth will pass away and be burned up. Yet, Psalm 104:5 says: “[Who] laid the foundations of the earth, [that] it should not be removed for ever.”

This apparent contradiction can be resolved when we understand that in regard to the flesh and to the material creation, for ever means “throughout life” or “as long as this situation exists.” For example, when Judah promised his father to bear the blame for ever if anything happened to Benjamin, (Gen. 43:9), he meant “as long as I live.” The servant who remained in his master’s house for the sake of his wife promised to serve for ever which meant “for the remainder of my life,” (Exodus 21:5-6).[i]

There is some misunderstanding amongst those who think that there are eternal, everlasting promises made to transient conditions of this material world and to perishable flesh. That is not so and cannot be, since all material things change and the fleshly life perishes, (Isaiah 40:6; Romans 8:1, 6, 10; 1Cor. 7:31; 1Peter 1:24 ).

The most misunderstood of these promises are those which God made with Abraham. In Genesis 13:15-17 God promised Abraham:

15 For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever. 16 And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth: so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, [then] shall thy seed also be numbered. 17 Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I will give it unto thee." (See also Genesis 12:7; 17:8.)

The promise to Abraham’s fleshly seed of the material land was fulfilled. Joshua declared that all of God’s promises were fulfilled: Joshua 21:45; 23:14. Solomon also declared that they were fulfilled: 1Kings 8:56. These were referring to the promises of a material nature upon the fleshly descendants of Abraham.

The promises of temporal and material blessings upon the fleshly heirs of Abraham were conditional. They depended upon the heirs keeping the faith of Abraham. For those who departed from the faith, broke the covenant and walked in disobedience, there were concomitant promises of cursings and of being cut off from the lineage of promise. These conditional promises are clearly delineated in Deuteronomy 27:9-28:68. Everytime you see the word if it indicates a condition, and the word then indicates a consequence.

The same is true of the promises to David concerning his kingship over Israel. In 2Samuel 7:8-16 God promises that David’s house and his throne will be established “for ever.” This was literally fulfilled in the dynasty of Solomon and his heirs for the generations that led up to Jesus' incarnation. The fleshly lineage of David is authenticated in the genealogy of Christ. In the crucifixion of Christ, the fleshly lineage ended and in His resurrection the Spiritual lineage continued in which the promise became truly eternal.

The promises of an eternal nature could only be fulfilled in the eternal Spirit. Although Joshua and Solomon both declared the material promises fulfilled, they were not eternally and ultimately fulfilled until Christ came and conquered the Flesh and arose to the eternal throne:

And these all, [the heroes of faith mentioned in the foregoing verses], having obtained a good report through faith, received not the [eternal] promise, (Hebrews 11:39).

The ultimate and eternal fulfillment was of a spiritual nature, that is, by faith: Romans 4:13-16; 9:8. It is those who keep the faith that are truly the heirs. The entire remnant of the fleshly lineage who kept the faith of Abraham accepted Christ: Romans 2:28-29; Galatians 3:16-29. This remnant was elected by grace: Romans 11:5, 7. All who did not accept Christ were blinded and cut off: Romans 11:17-19. Those broken-off branches still had hope, but only in Christ, that they might be grafted back into the vine of God’s people: Romans 11:23. Only if they were grafted back in were they eligible for the inheritance of the promises, and that only in the Spirit. They had no right to call themselves “Israel” unless they were in Christ: Romans 9:6-8, 27. But in Christ, the promise is “forever.”

Even though God promised David that his seed would succeed him on the throne “for ever,” the Lord told Solomon that his reign depended upon his obedience, 1Chronicles 28:9, and that if he forsook the Lord, he would be cast off “for ever.” Indeed, Psalm 37:28-9 promises that the seed of the wicked shall be cut off. It is the righteous only who will inherit the land. Indeed, the nation was later taken captive to Babylon for their sins and disobedience, Nehemiah 1:5-11. Only a small remnant of faithful ones returned.  The unrepentant were cast off forever.

Isaiah prophesies of a time when God’s people will be all righteous, chapter 60:21. Daniel prophesied that “the saints of the most High shall take the kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever,” (7:18). These are only fulfilled in the ultimate, eternal kingdom of Christ: Luke 1:33, 54-55:

33 And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end…. 54. He hath holpen his servant Israel, in remembrance of [his] mercy... 55 As he spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed for ever.”

Christ fulfilled the eternal promises to Abraham and his Seed. Revelation sums it up thus:

And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become [the kingdoms] of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever, (Revelation 11:15 KJV).

And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever, (Revelation 22:5).

The same things that are true of the promises of the land and the kingdom are also true of the promises concerning the Temple, or House, and the city, Jerusalem. Joel prophesied: “Judah shall dwell for ever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation,” (3:20). Jeremiah also said that the Temple and the city would “remain for ever,” (7:1-7). But this was conditional, as witnessed by the words if and then. See also chapter 7:21-27. In this context, it is clear that the temporal city would be destroyed if it fell into sin, idolatry and disobedience, but it was the spiritual City that would remain forever. The subsequent history confirms that God did indeed fulfill His promise both of good and of evil.

In the time of Christ’s ministry in His fleshly body, the Pharisees were teaching that the material city and land were an irrevocable promise to the fleshly descendants of Abraham. Christ refuted this teaching: John 8:33-59. Paul also refuted their teaching that the earthly, material city was eternal: Galatians 4:22-31. The writer to the Hebrews says also that the eternal city is above:

22 But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, 23  To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, (Hebrews 12).

We are admonished to leave Jerusalem, the earthly city of destruction:

13 Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach. 14 For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come, (Hebrews 13).

The eternal City that can never be destroyed was revealed to John the Revelator:

And 1John saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband, (Revelation 21:2).

Those who refused to accept Christ but rather trusted in fleshly lineage, legal practices, the material land and city, were destroyed in the wars and captivity of the 70 AD era. Let us be warned by their example that the geographical land called “Israel” and those pretending a fleshly lineage are doomed to a similar destruction unless they accept Christ. Only Christ and those in Him are “alive forevermore” and able to receive the eternal promises.




[i] This truth was also clearly given in a reprint of an article by Ostis B. Wilson, in Faith and Victory, (Guthrie, Oklahoma, June, 1996, p. 12-13).

This lesson is an edited excerpt from my book Revelation In Context.
My Book is available at the Living Word Bookstore in Shawnee, Oklahoma and is also available online at www.amazon.com  or www.xulonpress.com. Free downloads are available at www.revelationincontext.sermon.net .
 
 

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

59. HAIR AS WOOL AND EYES LIKE FIRE

59. HAIR AS WOOL AND EYES LIKE FIRE


1:14. Hair White as Wool:His head and His hair were as white as wool.”

A direct referent for this description is also found in the Book of Enoch (46.1). Enoch relates his experience:
1.And there I saw One, who had a head of days, And His head was white like wool, And with Him was another being whose countenance had the appearance of a man, and his face was full of graciousness, like one of the holy angels.
And I asked the angel who went with me and showed me all the hidden things, concerning that Son of Man, who he was, and whence he was, (and) why he went with the Head of Days?  3. And he answered and said unto me: ‘This is the Son of Man who hath righteousness, With whom dwelleth righteousness, And who revealeth all the treasures of that which is hidden, Because the Lord of Spirits hath chosen him, And whose lot hath the pre-eminence before the Lord of Spirits in uprightness for ever.
It would be profitable reading for any who have the inclination to read this whole passage in Enoch

1:14. Fire: “His eyes were like a flame of fire.”
The Book of Revelation contains so many references to fire that one can hardly fail to sense the importance of it to the basic message. It is almost as if the entire vision which John saw was illuminated by the fires of judgments on earth and the purifying fires from the heavens.
And he shall pass over to his strong hold for fear, and his princes shall be afraid of the ensign, saith the LORD, whose fire [is] in Zion, and his furnace in Jerusalem, Isaiah 31:9).
The eyes of Christ are like fire; gold must be refined by fire; fire is thrown into the earth from the altar in heaven. The traditions taught that the holy fire from heaven was one of the things that had been missing from the second temple period, (CNT, vol. 4, 295). We see from this passage that the Revelator viewed the heavenly Temple as the true one wherein the Holy Fire still resided.
There are burning mountains, fiery lightnings, dragon-like creatures breathing fire, as well as do the “witnesses,” (11:5). The beast has power to call down fire from heaven, but he and his followers are to be punished with fire. The sea of glass is mingled with fire and the fire from heaven scorches evil men. The great harlot is to be burned with fire by her lovers. The lake of fire is the ultimate punishment of the evil ones.
1:16. Sword of His Mouth:  “And out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword.”
The true interpretation of the term “sword of his mouth” is apparent from the Scriptures:
And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, (Eph. 6:17).
For the word of God [is] quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and [is] a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart, (Hebrews 4:12).
The offensive power of the Lord both for blessing as well as for vengeance is His spoken Word. Genesis chapter one is sufficient to establish that He needs no other source of power. It is certainly not consistent with His nature to use carnal weapons such as earthly kings use for warfare.
In Revelation 2:16 He warns: “(I) will fight against them with the sword of my mouth.” And in Revelation 19:21: “And the remnant of them were slain with the sword of Him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceedeth out of his mouth.” 
Ladd, quotes Psalms of Solomon 17:27,[i] saying that “...the Lord’s anointed...will establish the Kingdom by destroying the wicked ‘with the word of his mouth;’ i.e. by supernatural power.” Thus we see that the believing people of that era expected their Messiah to conduct this kind of spiritual warfare.


[i] Ladd, Theology, 38.  According to D. S. Russell, Apocalyptic, the Psalms of Solomon were first written in Hebrew and appear to have been written about the middle of the first century BC, (p. 57). 

This lesson is an edited excerpt from my book Revelation In Context.

My Book is available at the Living Word Bookstore in Shawnee, Oklahoma and is also available online at www.amazon.com  or www.xulonpress.com. Free downloads are available at www.revelationincontext.sermon.net .
 

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

58.THE SON OF MAN

58.THE SON OF MAN 

Revelation 1:13. Son of Man: “One like a Son of Man.”  (Also 14:14.)

As the Son of Man, Jesus identified with mankind, fulfilling God’s will that Man should have dominion over the earth. The term Son of Man is found more than 90 times in the Book of Ezekiel, and 68 times in the Gospels. In John 5:19-27 Jesus speaks of Himself as the Son of God and in verse 27 equates this with the Son of Man, “Because He is the Son of Man.”

Jesus referred to Himself in the third person as the “Son of Man” as in Matthew 11:19:[i]

The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of her children.

This was understood to be speaking of the Messiah.[ii]

Regarding the kingdom, He referred to Himself not only as the Son of Man, but also as the King. This was in reference to the passage in Daniel 7:13-14:

13. I saw in the night visions, and, behold, [one] like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. 14 And there was given him dominion and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, and nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom that all people, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and His kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.

Also in Luke 19:9-10:

9. And Jesus said unto him, This day is salvation come to this house, forsomuch as he also is a son of Abraham. 10. For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.

Here Jesus was identifying Himself as the Messiah, the Shepherd, by reference to a passage in Ezekiel 34: 11-16:

For thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I, [even] I, will both search my sheep, and seek them out.12 As a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep [that are] scattered; so will I seek out my sheep, and will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day.13 And I will bring them out from the people, and gather them from the countries, and will bring them to their own land, and feed them upon the mountains of Israel by the rivers, and in all the inhabited places of the country.14 I will feed them in a good pasture, and upon the high mountains of Israel shall their fold be: there shall they lie in a good fold, and [in] a fat pasture shall they feed upon the mountains of Israel.15 I will feed my flock, and I will cause them to lie down, saith the Lord GOD.16  I will seek that which was lost, and bring again that which was driven away, and will bind up [that which was] broken, and will strengthen that which was sick: but I will destroy the fat and the strong; I will feed them with judgment.

Dr. Robert Lindsay believes that Jesus spoke in Hebrew because recent archaeological discoveries near the Temple site indicate that Hebrew was the spoken language in Jerusalem at that time. However, in these passages He was quoting from portions of the Book of Daniel which were written in Aramaic, and so He used the Aramaic in these instances. In Aramaic the term Son of Man would be Bar-Enash. When translated into the Greek, the term would have been awkward, considered a barbarism, “The Son of The Man.”

The Son of Man as envisioned by Enoch had been hidden but was to be revealed to the elect:

And the kings and the mighty and all who possess the earth shall bless and glorify and extol him who rules over all, who was hidden. 7. For from the beginning the Son of Man was hidden, And the Most High preserved him in the presence of His might, And revealed him to the elect. (Charles, Enoch 62.6-7)

The revelation of Jesus Christ, as the Son of Man, is therefore the fulfillment of Enoch’s prophecy, as well as those of the Old Testament.

This lesson is an edited excerpt from my book Revelation In Context.
My Book is available at the Living Word Bookstore in Shawnee, Oklahoma and is also available online at www.amazon.com  or www.xulonpress.com.
 Free downloads are available at www.revelationincontext.sermon.net .




[i] I owe much of this discussion to a lesson given by Dr. Robert Lindsay on Channel 14 TBN television on December 11, 1988 at 2:30 p.m. CST. See also Robert Lindsay, Jesus Rabbi and Lord, (Oak Creek, Wisconsin, Cornerstone Publishing, 1990).

[ii] The term Son of Man was familiar to the New Testament Jewish Church not only because of His mention in the Book of Daniel, but also in the pseudepigraphical Book of Enoch. (See Charles, Enoch.) The Book of Enoch is one of the pieces of literature with which the early Church was familiar and which seemed to be revered almost equally with the canonical writings. In fact, the Book of Enoch is quoted in Jude verses 14 and 15. The Book therefore serves as a literary referent for many of the expressions and symbols used in the New Testament, and therefore should be considered as a part of the cultural context for the Book of Revelation. Many of the obscure ideas of the Book of Revelation will become clear after one reads the Book of Enoch although it is not Scripture.

   The Book of Enoch is part of a body of literature known as the pseudepigrapha, which simply means that the author's name, in this case Enoch, is a pseudonym for the real author. In fact, Oesterley quotes Burkitt, (Jewish and Christian Apocalypses, p. 18), regarding pseudonymous authorship: "...that the names were not chosen out of mere caprice; they indicated to a certain extent what subjects would be treated and the point of view of the writer."

    Charles, Enoch  p. 66, "48.2. And at that hour that Son of Man was named in the presence of the Lord of Spirits, And his name before the Head of Days. 3. Yea, before the sun and the signs were created, before the stars of the heaven were made, His name was named before the Lord of Spirits."