Monday, April 19, 2010

WAS THE 7TH DAY COMPLETED?

God pronounced each of the 6 days good, and each day ended with an evening and a morning. However, when we come to the 7th day, he blesses it and sets it apart, but does not pronounce it good, nor is it said to end. There is a spiritual lesson here that God is teaching us. That day, wherein God rested from all his works, was a day that would continue, in a spiritual sense, long after it started. It could not be complete, nor pronounced good, until the purpose for which God set it apart and blessed it was finished, complete, and functional.

I believe it is possible that that finishing took place on the cross of Jesus Christ. Remember, God said that on the seventh day he rested from all his works. With this in mind, turn to John 9, where we will consider a blind man getting healed, and some interesting statements made by Jesus about it.

Concerning this man, and the purpose for which he was born blind, notice what Jesus says:

Joh 9:3 Jesus answered, "Neither did this man sin, nor his parents; but, that the works of God might be revealed in him.

Pay careful attention to the last part, "revealed IN him." This revelation in him conveys the picture of God's work being hidden IN the man even before he is healed. That is what revelation, or manifestation, is all about-the showing of something that is hidden somehow. For example, speaking of his parables, which served to contain hidden meaning, meant to be understood only by those Jesus wanted, he said:

Mar 4:22 For there is nothing hidden, except that it should be made known; neither was anything made secret, but that it should come to light.

Concerning the mystery (hidden secret) of Christ in the non-Jew, it too was hidden, then revealed:

Col 1:26 the mystery which has been hidden for ages and generations. But now it has been revealed to his saints,
Col 1:27 to whom God was pleased to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory;


So, going back to John 9, we can see that there were works from God that were hidden in that blind man, waiting until that very day to be revealed by Jesus, the living word sent by the Father to accomplish his will.

Isa 55:11 so shall my word be that goes forth out of my mouth: it shall not return to me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing I sent it to do.

What I believe is that the Father prepared this work at the same time he prepared all of his works, by that sixth day of creation all the way back in Genesis. Those works were hidden, waiting to be revealed over time through the events that happened throughout history.

Just to keep it succinct, I will share one more scripture that sheds light on this: Eph 2:10. The works that we walk in as believers are not works that God whips up here and now, but rather, are works that were prepared beforehand for us. When? I believe all the way back in Genesis.

God is pictured as resting on that day, and the works that he performed were done from that position of rest and completion, from his viewpoint. However, from our viewpoint, things were far from finished.

We all know what happened, with sin entering the world, and the land being cursed for man, all creation subjected to futility. There would be an experiencing of good AND evil, what works and what is broken. The man born blind is but one small example of this, where he experienced evil from his birth (in his blindness) and would experience also good through the healing Jesus would provide.

Now here is what I want you to consider as I press on. Everything God worked, he only worked during the day, called morning and evening. God NEVER works at night. You can confirm this by reading over Genesis 1 again, and notice that after light is separated from darkness on the first day, night is no longer mentioned. The only period mentioned is the day, that period of time when God was at work. Now I'm not talking about the physical night period, but rather at what it represents in scripture. It represents that period where man cannot work, and neither does God.

You see, since God is light, then everything he works is in the light also, for there is no darkness in him from which works of darkness (which the light reveals to be not works at all) can come forth. That is why works of darkness (works during the night) are attributed only to the wicked, never to God.

Jesus, the one sent by God to work the works of God, said the same:

Joh 9:4 I must work the works of him who sent me, while it is day. The night is coming, when no one can work.


Now, again, he was not speaking about the physical period of light we commonly call day. Nor was he referring to the physical night. These represent spiritual realities, namely, what is of God (light, day) and what is not of God (darkness, night).

Notice that Jesus speaks of himself as the light of the world, and that while he was in the world working, it was considered day. I believe this day to be the extension spiritually of the day of rest that God blessed back in Genesis, waiting for night to come and a new day to dawn.

Looking at verse 4 again, Jesus spoke of a time when night would come. When was that night? I believe it was that period when Jesus was crucified.

It was when he about to breath his last mortal human breath that Jesus said this:

Joh 19:30 "It is finished." He bowed his head, and gave up his spirit.

While it is true that this speaks of the completion of all Jesus came to do, and what the Father was to accomplish through him, I believe that it also relates to the finishing of the last day, for when Jesus died, night came, and would remain until his resurrection, when the new day dawned for all mankind, the 8th day, the day of resurrection life! The rest which God offered to Israel physically through the promised land, but which they failed to enter because of unbelief, was now a reality through the finished work of Christ.

Ron

Saturday, April 10, 2010

DEATH, BURIAL, AND RESURRECTION OF CHRIST IN THE SCRIPTURES

Hidden in the stories of the books of scripture, you will find the death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord all over the place. I know one of the most familiar ones is that of Jonah and his being 3 days and nights in the fish, but that is just one of many, many others. His death, burial, and resurrection is the very foundation of the good news we believe, according to what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15, and so we should not be surprised to find this as the most written about event in Genesis through Malachi. Some are more difficult to find, but if you know what to look for, you will see them all over the place.

Basically, when reading an account, if you come across a derivative of 3, whether it be 3, 30, 300, or 3000, and with that something signifying a death and/or burial, or what would normally end up in death, and then a coming out of that situation, you are most likely reading a hidden occurrence of his death, burial, and resurrection.

The very first occurrence I could see is right there in the first chapter of Genesis, verses 1-13. I wrote about that in a previous blog (the one in March) so you can refer to that to see the pattern. I will be sharing more here and there as I come across them, but in the meantime, I encourage you to go search them out for yourself and be overjoyed at what the Lord reveals to you through it.

Ron

Sunday, April 4, 2010

EVERYTHING THAT EXISTS IS UNDER GOD'S CONTROL

The Hebrew word i e i is the word that is commonly translated as become, be, was, come to pass, and exist. For example, in Genesis 1:3:

And God said, "Let there be light, and there was light.

The word "be" and "was" is this word. This word contains a marvelous truth that testifies to the sovereignty of God, as one who is in control of all that exists.

This word contains a 2 letter root word, i e , that means "I exist, I breathe, I reveal." This is the root word for the divine name of God. It is commonly translated either as Yah, in English, shortened from Yahweh.

When the yod (which is depicted in ancient Hebrew as a hand with and arm) is added to this root, it becomes a verb telling us that whatever exists, whatever is revealed, whatever becomes, does so because God works so that it happens. The yod pictures the idea of working. So in other words, when we read Gen 1:3 we can say that God, by saying "Let there be light," was in effect saying, "Light, be revealed by the working [i] of the one who reveals [ie]." When there was light, we can also say it this way, that the light existed by the working [i ] of the one who exists [ie]. (Depending on your understanding of whether God's name speaks of his existence, or his revealing. I lean toward the understanding that it means "he reveals.")

All through scripture we thus see that everything that occurs is under God's sovereign control. He is working in and through it all, including that which is evil, to bring about that which is good and brings glory to his name. This little word takes on so much more meaning does it not, knowing that the very imprint of God's name is in it? This also teaches us that the entirety of scripture is primarily about revelation, all under the direction of God.

Ron

WHAT DO SHINE AND TENT HAVE IN COMMON?

Gen 4:20 And Adah is baring Jabal. He becomes the forefather of the tent dweller and the cattleman.

Job 25:5 Behold, even the moon has no brightness, and the stars are not pure in his sight;

In doing my translation work this morning, I was researching the word for tent in Hebrew, which is a,e,l-Aleph, Hey, Lamed. What I found out is that the same 3 letter root word is found in Job 25:5, which means "to shine or be bright."

Gen 4:20 ותלד עדה את־יבל הוא היה אבי ישׁב אהל ומקנה׃

Job 25:5 הן עד־ירח ולא יאהיל וכוכבים לא־זכו בעיניו׃

(As a note, this is the Hebrew without the vowel pointings, and also understand that the י at the beginning of the word in Job 25:5 is a prefix indicating gender and type, in this case, masculine. The other י next to the ל denotes action, in this case, the act of shining.) The 3 remaining letters are the same as what makes up the word for tent, also commonly called a tabernacle.

Why would the Hebrews have used the same root words to indicate shining, and also tent? There is something that they have in common, something that relates one to the other in their minds. The letter
ה in the middle helps us understand the relationship. That letter basically conveys the idea of beholding something, looking at something, something revealed. Oftentimes when it is placed in the middle of another word, it means that whatever that other word is is revealed.

If we take away the
ה we now have the word, אל which is the basic root word for God. When I saw this, I realized that this is speaking of something where God is revealed. In seeing that, I now could see the connection. Can you see it?

One of the primary ways God is revealed is as light; in particular, a shining from his presence. There are many things which are bright, things shine, which speak of God; things such as fire, precious stones, gold, light from the sun and moon and stars, etc. This is the basic understanding of the word found in Job 25:5, which speaks of the shining, or revealing, of the moon.

Now, let's complete the picture. Where is it that God revealed himself primarily to Israel? It was the tent of meeting, or the tabernacle of meeting. That is where his glory, or shining, dwelt. Just as a shining reveals God, so too the tabernacle revealed him. But let's go a bit further with it.

The common tent, or dwelling place, of the nomadic Hebrews also was to be a place where God was revealed. Each family unit living in a tent was to reveal God in the home. But we can take it to it's ultimate fulfillment, somewhere intimately associated with us.

Jesus is said by John to have tabernacled with man. He was the ultimate fulfillment of the object that would reveal God. It would be by means of his own body. He did that in a limited way while on earth, yet now he does so across the globe, in us, his body now. Our tabernacles are where God reveals himself now. Truly our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit, so may this little lesson keep fresh in our minds the reality that we are who God chose to reveal himself through permanently. Therefore how awesome it is to think that when God speaks of revealing himself, we are the ones he does it through!

Ron

CREATION DAYS AND HOW THEY RELATE TO JESUS DEATH AND RESURRECTION

If you look carefully at the account in Genesis 1, you will notice that before the light is seen in verse 3, there is darkness, which God would later call night. After the light comes, and the light is separated from the darkness, there is no more mention of darkness or of night in any of the rest of the chapter. God is teaching us something here about our Lord.

From verse 5 on, there is only mention made of the daylight portion, the day, made up of 2 things-morning and evening. Evening is not night. It is not darkness. It is that period of time in the afternoon until the sun goes down, so it is also part of the day, as scripture says. We consider days as 24 hour periods. A biblical day is, as Jesus said, 12 hours. The night portion has nothing to do with the day. It is simply that dark period known as night that comes between each day, between evening and morning.

This mentioning of only the day teaches us that our Lord is only of the day. He only works in the day. None of his works are works in darkness, for with God, there is no darkness. That is why there is no mention of darkness or of night given in the creation account, to teach us this, as well as give us a foreshadowing of what would happen with Jesus on the cross.

In John 9, he made this statement shortly before his death:

Joh 9:4 I must work the works of him who sent me, while it is day. The night is coming, when no one can work.

A little while later, he made a similar statement:

Joh 12:34 The multitude answered him, "We have heard out of the law that the Christ remains forever. How do you say, 'The Son of Man must be lifted up?' Who is this Son of Man?"
Joh 12:35 Jesus therefore said to them, "Yet a little while the light is with you. Walk while you have the light, that darkness doesn't overtake you. He who walks in the darkness doesn't know where he is going.


Jesus is saying that he, as the light of the world, only worked during the day, for that is only when his Father worked as well, as Genesis 1 confirms. Also, we see that he, as the light, would give way to night. Once again, the world would be put into a darkness spiritually, where there would be no light, just as existed in Genesis 1:2.

This would occur when Jesus, the light of the world, was crucified. God signified this darkness by means of a literal darkness he caused to occur over the land for 3 hours, from 12 noon, when the sun was at it's height, until 3pm, which was the height of the evening.

That 3 hours of darkness I believe pictured the 3 days and night of darkness during which time Jesus was in the heart of the earth. But then, by the power of God, light would once again be seen, for Jesus would rise from the dead! This was foreshadowed back in Genesis 1:3 when God spoke, and light came. Just as that light came out of the darkness, according to the way Paul worded it in 2Co 4:6, so too Jesus, the true light, came out of the darkness of the spiritual night he said would come on all the earth when he was dead.

We are in him, as as such, belong to the day. We are therefore the light of the world as well, and our works are works of light, of the day. That is the only time that work can be done. Be thankful for his removing us from the kingdom of darkness and being put into the kingdom of light. We once were as Jesus said in John 12, overcome by darkness, and not knowing where we were going. But by Jesus' miraculous raising from death, we now walk in and live the resurrection life, which is light.

Ron